Scouting Pt3: Opponent Offense

What everybody likes to do

The NCAA Women’s Volleyball playoffs are over! I’ll have some breakdowns of the finals later this week, but for today here’s the pre-planned Monday post.

In conjunction with playoff previews and post-match analysis, I’m including a 3-part series on scouting and gameplanning. In Part 1, I discussed Scouting Serve and Pass. In Part 2, we looked at Scouting Opponent Defense.

Scouting Pt2: Opponent Defense

Now, in Part 3, we’ll look at Scouting Opponent Offense.

In previous posts, I said this:

I also find Serving and Passing a bit underrated when it comes to scouting. Whenever people talk to me about scouting, what always comes up first is scouting opponent hitting. But the first thing I always scout is Serving and Passing. Since it’s underrated, it’s probably an area to gain an edge over what some people aren’t doing.

So we started with Scouting Serve and Pass, then we moved to Scouting Opponent Defense. But now, in Part 3, it’s time to do what everybody always means when they say scouting and that’s Scouting Opponent Offense.

Why Scout Opponent Offense?

Because the most common way for teams (beyond the lower levels) to score a point is by killing the ball. We don’t want them to kill the ball. So let’s scout their offense.

What To Scout

The most important things for me to scout when it comes to Opponent Offense are:

1. Overall System and Philosophy

2. Rotation Characteristics

3. Hitter Tendencies and Capability

4. Setter Tendencies and Capability

Let’s take a look at each of these:

Overall System and Philosophy

If this team is a conference opponent and both head coaches have been around for a while, you might be able to write this part of the report before you watch them play. When I was coaching at LMU we knew St. Mary’s was going to stress us with speed to the pins and then lob it up a little slower to the middle and turn the ball around the court with range. When I load up my Volleymetrics to take a look at them this year… yep, same thing!

That doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to stop this team. But I find that if I can understand the overall philosophy of the game the other team has, it gives me a clarity to understand how to present the subsequent information to my players. After all, imagine if you were going to give somebody a scouting report against your team- it would probably be fairly easy to explain what they (meaning your team) are trying to do offensively.

Rotation Characteristics

Note that I’m not necessarily saying Rotation Tendencies here. I think sometimes we get hung up on presenting whether a team is 30% or 35% left-side volume in a given rotation. Again, think back to how you make offensive gameplans. You’re not necessarily thinking that way. But what you are thinking about is how your hitters match up against their blockers.

Now take that and apply it to the other team, especially given what you know about their System and Philosophy. Also (and this is especially important at lower levels like High School), what is the literal alignment of their rotation and what are they trying to accomplish by that? Some high school teams stack in Rotation 1 and there is zero chance they are going to set the opposite that’s bolting for the right side of the court. They are just clearing out to set their left side. On the other hand, some higher-level teams that stack in Rotation 1 are doing so because their lefty opposite is good on the right and they are going to try to set her after she runs across.

The numbers are going to help reflect this, but I see it more as an indication of, okay, so that’s how the overall distribution has worked out previously, and how is that likely to change or stay the same against us?

Hitter Tendencies and Capabilities

Okay, this is pretty straight forward. You have your shot charts, you have your heat maps, etc.

Ohhh.. pretty colors!

A few of the most important things to chart, beyond the overall trends:

1. Outside tendencies when they attack after passing v when they don’t pass.

2. Middle attacking tendencies when they start behind the setter (like Ro6) or in front (like Ro5)

3. D-Ball hitting opposites in Ro 4/3 v Ro 2 (longer runway).

4. If an opposite runs around in Ro1, her tendencies in Ro 1 (with the longer run) vs Ro6/5

5. Only the tips or off-speed shots. Most hitters have one distinct off-speed shot that they rely on.

Setter Tendencies and Capabilities

Some of this will be captured when you analyze their rotations. This also links to their Overall System and Philosophy. Do they like to set their middle when they get the chance? Or do they feed their outsides, even on perfect passes? Do they mostly run isolate packages, where the middle goes to one gap and they set him or the long-way? Or do they incorporate overloads as well?

How offensive is the setter? What situations has she attacked? Some setters will rarely dump on the first serve of a particular server, but are more likely to dump after failing to sideout a couple times. Does she dump more in First Ball or more in Transition? Many setters in the NCAA dump more when in Setter-2 than Setter-3 or 4 because their weaker middle is in the game.

How does the setter interact with errors or kills by her teammates? Does she go back to a hitter after a kill and streak the hot hitter? Or does she spread it around? Most lower level setters will never repeat a middle or opposite after that player makes an error; they’ll always go to somebody else. One of the most reliable ways to stop these teams in the 2-hitter rotations is to double-commit on the middle and try to get a stop, and then totally ignore the middle on the next ball and stack against the outside.

What is the setter capable of doing? Is she capable of making long sets? Is she capable of running the middle effectively off the net? Is she capable of saving a tight pass to a player other than the middle? Eliminating options helps your players read the game. If I know she’s no good at setting long behind, then I can step toward the outside (as a middle blocker) and make them do what they don’t want to do to beat us.

Presenting It To Your Athletes

I’ve emphasized this aspect less in the other 2 parts, but I think your presentation is most critical when it comes to scouting their offense. It’s very easy to get way too bogged down in the weeds and minute details when you’re presenting opponent offense. You also need to balance that against what your players are expecting.

Okay, let’s start with the first point: organizing your information and presenting things in a hierarchy. Some hitters on the other team are going to get more sets than others. Sometimes a lot more. Within just raw attempts, certain types of attacks are more important. I judge importance as a combination of (1) frequency (2) actionability.

For example, say their best hitter gets a lot of sets and her most common swing is to hit high and hard on the medium angle. To defend this: lockers need to get across the net on a good lineup and crosscourt and middle-back defenders need to be good splitting the long angle. Okay so, like, the default defensive alignment for most teams. Cool, got it. That would be high-frequency, low-actionability.

On the flip side, say one of their outside hitters loves to shoot the ball high line whenever the set is inside. This is a bit of an unusual play, since most hitters go with the set and hit that inside ball cross. It’s therefore highly-actionable, because your middle-back defender needs to play against the default and be prepared to run down the high line shot instead of the more common long angle swing. It’s also actionable because off-speed shots are easy to get if you’re ready for them.

Now for the balance: on every professional team I’ve ever coached, players have a strong desire to see swings from every hitter. There’s just a feeling of preparation that gives them. At times, I think it’s counterproductive, because it’s brain space taken up by a player who isn’t going to get set much and we can defend with our base defensive system. But if I fight my players on that, I’m going against their instincts and wasting leadership capital for no reason.

Instead, I like to follow the Pat Summitt advice for presenting information.

Players only remember the first and the last things you tell them.

So start your presentation with the most critical information, then add some of the filler stuff that helps them feel more comfortable, then close the session again with the most critical information.