Spring 2023 Mailbag: Part 2

$7 Study Qs, Offensive Concepts, and Blocking Eyework

First, a couple comments on the February $7 Study:

Kaiao Nahale-a asks:

Aloha! Question regarding the slide attack (CF in the Modified Efficiency By Attack Type table). How does it have a negative efficiency when none of the the efficiencies are negative in all 4 passing phases?

My original question was going to be why is the slide inefficient? Are slide attackers making too many E's or are the getting blocked? But after looking back over the table I think I need to gain a better understanding of how the modified efficiency is calculated.

So the modified efficiency basically compares that attack to the average attack in that situation.

None of the slide efficiencies are negative, but for example, the Perfect Pass (R#) efficiency is 0.220, compared to the tournament average of 0.30. So, in Perfect Pass situations, the slide modified efficiency was -0.08. Same thing for the Good Pass (R+), where the efficiency was 0.200, again about -0.08 below the average for that situation.

So slide hitting wasn't negative efficiency, it was just, on average, 8% less efficient than other attacks that were used in the same situations.

In terms of E/B/K… slide hitting (in the NCAA tournament) was a bit higher-error and lower-kill. Now the reasons why? I wouldn’t make a sweeping generalization; I think it’s different for different teams.

Jason R asks:

Really enjoyed this one, thanks Joe!

Question: Seems like a key point you hint at is - slides are hit when setters are FR, most quicks and gaps are setter back row. Would it be relatively easy to compare the two sets when setter is front row for both (to get an idea of the quick and gap eff w/ a front row setter)?

Follow up question I have is just comparing all hitting (especially when thinking about modified efficiency) when setter is FR vs BR. And then maybe FR vs BR in SR only or trans only as well. Anecdotally it seems like at levels where D and even Bic aren't particularly strong options, 2 hitter offenses seem to be less productive, but I would love to see some stats on that if they aren't already covered elsewhere. Thanks as always!

So yes, 100%, that’s an important point. What intrigues me about this is that the D-ball was pretty effective, and of course, you’re only setting D-ball when the setter is front row. (And, because there wasn’t much D-ball set, it’s also a good bet that only teams that were pretty confident in their D-ball were actually setting it, another confounding factor.)

I’ve always been a fan of 6-2 in theory, 5-1 in application. As Jason notes, at a lot of levels, the data is clear: teams are better in a 3-hitter offense than a 2-hitter offense. Even when I was with USA WNT, that was clear at that level. However, I’ve always felt like the advantages of running a 5-1 (consistency, allowing one setter to become the setter, etc) outweighted the theoretical efficiency gained from a 6-2. But, each season is different.

And this stuff is for sure, very team-specific. For example, here’s some data from one season when I was with USA WNT:

So the top grouping (“Most Frequent”, “Least Frequent”) shows how often that play as run by a given team. The bottom grouping (“Most Efficient”, “Least Efficient”) shows how effective that play was.

So for example, we almost always ran Go-Slide-Bic/C in a 2-hitter rotation. 90% of the time, that’s what we did. On the flip side, Korea kept a middle in front of the setter 2/3 of the time in 2-hitter rotations and only ran slide 33% of the time.

And we were really good at it; in fact, we were the best in the world in the 2-hitter rotations, with a 38% hitting efficiency, nearly exclusively running slide. So clearly slide hitting was good for us there. BUT… look at the average efficiency column there:

On average, Go - Slide - Bic was the least-efficient run in FIVB Women’s volleyball that season!

So while it was certainly a good choice for USA to rely heavily on the slide, there were probably some teams that were relying too heavily on a slide and might have been better keeping their middles in front at times. But when you have this…

… you’d be setting a lot of slide too!

So my takeaways from that study is: “somebody is setting too much slide.” But who should continue to rely on slide and who should look for other options? That’s up to the individual teams to figure out.

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Here’s some feedback from a college coach who attended an Offensive Concepts seminar a while back and was working through some implementation in the spring:

This is AMAZING, thank you so much for taking the time to watch all of those reps and give such specific feedback, my players were very excited to hear that you would be watching their reps!

We have played with fixed and moving sets, but this spring was the first that we labeled this so specifically and really tackled the Pull 5.  That cone and the freedom to use her movement solutions/athleticism to guide the middles or exchange if need be really made her sets more consistent.  Now I need to find a visual trick to make sure they stay hittable height.  We put the serving string up right now to give her a "train track" and will see if we start trending the right direction!

Drawing my attention to the toe curl was eye opening-we had really emphasized the sidewalk, intersection and beating defender sideline so this was a great reminder especially for when they can adjust and turn it into the deep goody box.  I also think my heavy armed hitter with the natural turn will greatly benefit from some tutor time to be able to feel out the difference between pull and turn. 

Stay tuned because I have another seminar lined up in North Carolina in about a month!

Those of you who have done some of this stuff will probably recognize some of the more esoteric terms, and some of it might be a little mumbo-jumboish. But what I wanted to draw attention to was the value this coach is getting out of external cues and constraints.

Serving string
Train track
Sidewalk
Intersection
Beating defender sideline
Deep goody box

Etc.

Some of those terms I suggested at the seminar, some of those the coach invented. The point that I love is the attempt to give the setters and hitters these clear external visuals for creating setting and attacking lanes.

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Email from a reader:

Quick question on blocking eye-work. At the juniors level we're trying to get blockers to be able to bounce their eyes from their primary hitter, to the setter, back to the hitter getting the ball. You mention not having their eyes bouncing all over the court. Does the difference have anything to do with level (juniors tend to have a lot less predictable set locations whether that's because they're trying out 'fancy' offenses or just poor setting ability) or is there a better way for me to interpret that?

This is my first year coaching a 15 Open club team as opposed to 18 Open so I really appreciated the analysis on junior teams at each age group you did a few months back. We're pretty strong defensively and unfortunately weak in serve reception, so we're trying pretty hard to be low error in terminal serving and 1st ball offense, but take more risks as we get into the transition game.

Answer below the paywall..