LOVB Triangles 25 Part 1
Terminal Serving
I write about the Triangle framework a lot. Most recently, I broke down the 2024 NCAA Women’s season.
Part 1: Terminal Serving Leaderboard
Part 2: Terminal Serving Correlations
Part 3: First Ball Leaderboard
Part 4: First Ball Correlations
Part 5: Transition Leaderboard
Part 6: Transition Correlations
I have some stuff underway for the 2025 NCAA Men’s season, but this week I’m going to share some analysis on the inaugural 2025 LOVB Pro Women’s season. I have to squeeze this in quick, because there’s only a few days in between the end of the regular season and the beginning of the playoffs. Let’s get into it.
Terminal Serving
Differential
53% - Atlanta (+34)
53% - Houston (+29)
53% - Omaha (+27)
50% - Madison (-2)
46% - Austin (-41)
45% - Salt Lake (-47)
Interesting to see Atlanta and Houston at the top there. In previous NCAAW analysis, we’ve seen Terminal Serving be less correlated with winning than First Ball and Transition. Everything is a little more difficult to correlate in a 6-team like than a 300-team league like the NCAA, because the sample size is much lower. But the top-2 playoff seeds were also top in Terminal Serving Differential.
You can also see the magnitude, we’re talking anywhere from a +2 to a -3 swing per match, or about 5 points in total differential. Not a ton. Overall, about 15% of LOVB points were Terminal Serving, which is even lower than NCAAW. If you complain that men’s volleyball has too many service aces and errors, than you should love the brand of volleyball being played in LOVB.
Serve-In%
92.5 - Omaha
91.4 - Houston
90.1 - Austin
89.9 - Madison
89.6 - Atlanta
88.5 - Salt Lake
Not a ton of correlation here to winning. Houston near the top; Atlanta near the bottom. Let’s look at the other two parts:
Ace %
6.1 - Atlanta
5.4 - Salt Lake
4.9 - Houston
4.6 - Madison
4.0 - Omaha
3.3 - Austin
So here we see 5-11 Omaha and Austin and the bottom and 13-3 Atlanta at the top.
Dead Ball %
8.2 - Atlanta
8.4 - Omaha
8.5 - Houston
9.3 - Salt Lake
10.2 - Madison
11.9 - Austin
I expanded this a bit to include both aces allowed as well as shanked passes that did not lead to a first ball attacking attempt.
When we put these 3 factors together, we can see why Atlanta led in Terminal Serving… they served in a lot, they served aces, and they didn’t allow aces. That’s a recipe for winning.
Going beyond that, an additional sub-factor I like to look at is Libero Share, that is, “what % of total team receptions was passed by the libero?” Now, there’s a little complication here because there are some liberos that have not played every match as the libero, but as a crude measure, let’s look at the share of total receptions by liberos in the league:
Libero Share
25% - Piyanut (Alanta)
19% - Medved (Madison)
17% - Pogany (Houston)
17% - Jarvis (Austin)
16% - Wong-Orantes (Omaha)
15% - Kojima (Salt Lake)
Everybody but Medved played nearly every set for their teams, so these rankings are probably pretty good in reflecting the share of receptions that each team funneled through their liberos. Now let’s look at the Ace % given up by each libero:
Libero Aced %
2.8 - Piyanut
3.6 - Kojima
4.7 - Wong-Orantes
5.3 - Pogany
5.3 - Medved
6.0 - Jarvis
If you look at Good Pass %, Piyanut doesn’t necessarily distinguish herself:
Libero Good Pass % (LOVB Website)
55.5 - Pogany
51.6 - Kojima
51.3 - Piyanut
49.1 - Medved
47.7 - Wong-Orantes
47.7 - Jarvis
Good Pass % matters, but we know from previous research that ace prevention probably matters more. Atlanta has the libero who is both (1) passing significantly more balls than any other libero in the league and (2) almost never getting aced. Only 9 times aced on 316 receptions!
Playoff Predictions
I’ll expand more in the next 2 series, but I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by saying that Atlanta is the favorite for the playoffs. A big part of that is a simple formula:
Serve-In
Serve Tough
Have a libero who passes a lot of balls and almost never gets aced.
Have an outside (Cook) who leads the league in good reception %.
We’ll unpack a little more of how #4 affects their ability to FBSO in the next article series. If you have playoff predictions or questions you’d like see answered before the playoffs start, drop something in the comments!