Points Of The Triangle: Transition
The phase of the game that actually requires sweating.
When we looked at The Triangle method of analyzing our team, we put a different aspect of the game at each point of the triangle. We previously looked at Terminal Serving and First Ball. In this section, we’ll look at Transition points.
What Are Transition Points?
Transition points break down into four broad categories
1. Our transition kills.
2. Opponent transition kills.
3. Our transition stops.
4. Opponent transition stops.
What Is Transition?
Transition is when a second opportunity for attack happens, whether or not that opportunity (or the first opportunity, for that matter) is taken advantage of.
For example, if a team shanks a ball out of serve receive and sends a freeball (first opportunity, not taken advantage of), the team receiving the freeball is in Transition. If a team digs a ball, they are more obviously in Transition.
If a team passes a ball in serve receive and takes their First Ball swing, is soft-blocked, covers their hitter, and takes another swing, that is a Transition attack, even though the other team hasn’t had a chance to attack yet.
A Transition situation could occur even when neither team has attacked a ball yet in the rally. I’m looking at you, U-12 volleyball! For example, the first team shanks a pass and sends a freeball, the other team passes the ball up, but the setter makes an error. That’s a Transition error.
How Common Are Transition Points?
At the high school level1, you see matches where each phase of the game is about 1/3 of the total points. This applies to some juniors club levels as well, particularly around 14s or 15s. Higher levels see fewer Terminal Serves. Higher levels also see more First Ball points, relative to Transition points. There’s some team-specific fluctuations here. Teams that are more terminal tend to play a little more in First Ball. Scrappier, less powerful offensive teams tend to play more in Transition.
All told, a typical high school girl’s volleyball match sees 40-50% of the plays enter Transition, with the other 50-60% resulting in either Terminal Serves or First Ball points. On the extreme end, in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, only about 25% of the men’s gold medal match was played in Transition.
How Well Does Winning Transition Predict Winning?
As you might imagine, with close to half of the rallies entering Transition, winning this aspect of the game goes a long way toward winning a match. In the 2021 Big 102 season, Transition was the most predictive of the 3 Triangle points; if you won the Transition battle, you won the match over 80% of the time.3
One characteristic is that higher level tilts toward First Ball, while lower levels of play favor Transition. Since the majority of readers of this page are high school or juniors coaches, we want to pay attention to this area! But, as we just saw, winning Transition helps put you in position to win a match at any level.
How Does Transition Correlate With Other Aspects?
Good volleyball teams are good at lots of things.
Teams that win Transition often win Terminal Serves and First Ball. It’s not uncommon to see teams win all 3 aspects. In the recent Big 10 season, if you won Transition, you also won Terminal Serves 64% of the time. If you won Transition, you also won First Ball 70% of the time.
In future weeks, we’ll dive more into what I call Team Profiles, which are the cases that are most interesting. Dominating, or getting dominated, doesn’t result in an interesting match. An easy victory or blowout loss doesn’t provide as much information as a close match where the strengths and weaknesses of two teams intersected in a specific way.
What happens when I’m stronger in Transition, but weaker in the other two areas? Or when I’m weaker in Transition, but stronger in the other two areas? Winning only Transition, but losing the other 2 areas still led to a win 38% of the time.4
How Common Are Kills And Stops In Transition?
Transition plays are killed less often than First Ball plays, especially at higher levels. The teams in the recent 2021 NCAA Final Four averaged a 0.307 efficiency in First Ball, but a 0.230 efficiency in Transition. High school teams see a similar spread, but much lower efficiency: typically closer to a 0.100 Transition efficiency and 0.200 First Ball.
This goes along with a general trend: at younger levels, avoiding errors is relatively more important. At higher levels, killing the ball becomes relatively more important. One of the fascinating aspects of coaching at the high school level is that it’s the bridge between high and lower levels. Going from last in your conference to middle of the pack is probably more about reducing errors. But going from making the playoffs to winning a state championship is probably more about killing the ball.
As always, coaching volleyball is a never-ending challenge!
In general, when I say, “high school level,” I tend to mean, “high school varsity.” But even that is about a broad a concept as saying “college volleyball,” which lumps in the top of D1 with the bottom of D3. So there’s a wide range in level of “high school” volleyball.
I’ve done the most extensive statistical research on the Big 10 this year, but I think the transfer to other conferences is pretty strong.
Of course, since good teams are good at lots of things, there’s overlap with the other 3 phases.
So then, losing Transition, but winning the other two areas, led to a win 62% of the time. Bit of a small sample size advisory on that one.