Let Them Serve Out

The easiest way to score a point

Webinar Reminder
This Sunday (May 26) at 8pm New York Time I’ll be hosting a webinar for Premium Subscribers. This will be a module from my Offensive Concepts seminar. I’ll present some of the reception systems I use in my offensive system and show you how to set them up. If you can’t get to a live event, this is a great time to become a Premium Subscriber and get access to this webinar. The link is at the bottom of this article, below the paywall.

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I’ve been talking a bunch about passing this past month.

Offensive Profiles: Passing Strength
Offensive Profiles: Passing Weakness
Outside Angles, Inside Angles
15-Play Friday
DBU - GBI

Earlier this week, I compared the passing profiles of teams who were relatively better (or worse) at ace prevention vs teams who were relatively better (or worse) at passing in-system:

This reminded of a very common topic of conversation at coaching clinics, particularly among juniors coaches: following the ball to the line.

My experience in working with juniors players seems to be constantly telling them the opposite of what their previous coaches told them to do. Maybe not so much about the overall goals and way to play volleyball. I haven’t met many coaches who don’t want players to pass accurately and jump high/hit hard and go for the ball on defense, etc.

But there’s a specific class of coaching maxims that have wormed their way into juniors (and beyond) volleyball coaching. They revolve around different-but-kind-of-related behaviors that seem like they would indicate that a player is working hard, but that really good volleyball players don’t do. There’s a few of these floating out there, but #1 on on my list is:

Follow the ball to the line.

And what is implied in that statement is something like, “follow the ball to the line… so that if you see it’s actually going in you can play it.”

This seems like it would be something an intense, in-the-game player would do. Indeed, you do see plenty of juniors players do this, either on their own or at the insistence of their coach. Some players do follow a serve to the line as they are calling it out.

And yet…

And:

And:

I’ll talk a bunch more about this in the webinar on Sunday. Get the link below. Hope to see you there.