Sideout By Pass Quality Pt2
Medium Pass, Semi-System.
Other articles in this series:
Sideout by Pass Quality Pt1
Sideout by Pass Quality Pt3
Last week, we looked at analyzing Sideout By Pass Quality.
This is a crucial metric for us, and I’d consider the second layer of the Triangle. First: we look at the three big aspects of the game: Terminal Serving, Transition, First Ball. At lots of levels, the First Ball aspect is the biggest determinant, so we want to hone in on the specific sideout situations a bit more. Part of being good at sideout is passing well. The other part is being good offensively, relative to the situations your passers put you in.
Last week we talked about analyzing In-System offense by Setter Call/Middle Pattern. Part of the definition of being “In-System” is that your middle is available as an option to set. Being “Out-of-System” means you don’t have the middle available to set. But the reason that defining a Medium Pass situation is important is because your setter does still have options. In this way, I think it’s best thought of less as “Out-of-System” and more as “Semi-System.” You don’t have all your options, but you probably have more than one. And even if your setter only has one option, your attacker probably still has ways to score and isn’t in a pure make-them-play mode.
So how do we analyze Semi-System play?
Well, the first step is just recognizing that it exists! Just recognizing the impact of Semi-System play on the game, charting it, and being focused on getting better in that area goes a long way. And I think separating it from true Out-of-System play is a step in that direction.
In NCAA women’s volleyball, the Sideout % for a Medium Pass (R!) is about 60%, while a Bad Pass (R-) is more like 50%. In FIVB men’s volleyball, you’re looking at more like 67% and 55%. So in both cases, a significant separation exists. It’s comparable the difference between Medium Pass and Good (R+) Pass Sideout. To use NCAA women’s numbers again, we see three systems:
In-System: about 67% Sideout (“2 out of 3”)
Semi-System: about 60% Sideout (“3 out of 5”)
Out-of-System: about 50% sideout (“50/50”)
I like that differentiation, because there’s pretty significant separation and they can be attached to fairly real, tangible numbers. You can coordinate drills around those standards and easily glance at your post-game or in-game sheet to see how things are going. This is also why I’m not a huge fan of differentiating Perfect (R#) and Good (R+) passes. You’re looking at a standard of 66% Sideout v 68% Sideout. Where’s the practical difference there? I don’t think it really affects how you train or make decisions on the volleyball court. Maybe you keep an eye on it over time in case there’s something weird going on, but most of the time it’s just noise that will wash out.
You might think about charting your efficiency by attack pattern on Medium Pass. Here’s a random post-tournament excerpt from way back in the day when I was on the USA staff.
I’ve always liked incorporating league-level analysis into this sort of thing. We saw that in Semi-System situations, where we at or near the best in the world at attacking behind the setter, whether that be a Slide or an in-tempo set to the Opposite. But we were quite ineffective at forcing the ball to the middle from off the net.
Your choice of what to do with that information is up to you. Your choices are more limited in Semi-System, but your setter does still have choices. Although one way that In-System is defined is by “is the middle available,” you can still force the ball to the middle in some situations that you really don’t want to call an “In-System” ball. In this season, Serbia was getting a lot out of that play. USA wasn’t. And then you have the standard coaches dilemma:
Do I adjust our training, to improve our weaknesses?
Do I adjust our tactics, to play more to our strengths?
A constant them in this newsletter has been that there isn’t always a right answer to that question. That’s why you get paid the big (ha!) bucks, right?