Team Profile: First Ball Weakness
We’ve introduced The Triangle framework of analyzing teams and matches. We discussed Terminal Serves, First Ball, and Transition. We also introduced the concept of Team Profiles. Last week we looked at a First Ball Strength profile.
This week we’ll flip that around and examine the idea of a First Ball Weakness Team Profile.
Review: What Is A Team Profile?
Using The Triangle to create a Team Profile means to understand which of the factors are relatively strong or weak for that team. If you think about a team that is perfectly average in all three aspects, the triangle would be even on all sides. Equilateral, if you will. But if one aspect is much stronger than the other two, you can imagine that point would move away from the other two, skewing the triangle in that direction. Likewise, if one aspect is much weaker than the other two, you can imagine that point moving toward the other two, skewing the triangle in a different way.
Ultimately, a Team Profile is a visualization that helps coaches connect their team’s strengths and weaknesses to what needs to be done in training.
What Do You Mean By First Ball Strength?
A team with a First Ball strength is a team where their ability to score points on their first attack out of serve receive is stronger than their ability to score points from the service line (with aces) and stronger than their ability to score in Transition. A First Ball strength could also mean that they are good at preventing points on their opponent’s first ball attack, but not as good once the rally is extended.
An important note is that this is relative to the overall strength of the team. For example, a team that is well below-average in Terminal Serves and Transition might have a First Ball strength by being just a bit above-average, whereas a team that is strong in those two aspects would have to be outstanding in First Ball for it to be a relative strength.
How Do I Know If An Aspect Is A Strength Or A Weakness?
I define a strength as an aspect that is at least a half standard-deviation below the other two aspects. For example, a team that’s a bit above-average in First Ball has a First Ball strength if they are below-average in Terminal Serving and Transition.
Why half of a standard deviation? I don’t know, it seems about right to me.
But more importantly, it’s not even about the specific statistical quantification. If you’re a high school coach, you don’t know what the standard deviation is for all of these aspects- although I will share some data as we go. But most coaches have a sense for the strengths and weaknesses of their teams. Where do you seem to gain an advantage? Where you do seem to have a disadvantage?
Some teams are balanced. That’s informative as well. Don’t assume you team is clearly skewed in one direction without taking some time to think about it.
Also, don’t assume your team has a strength in an area of the game, just because you WANT them to have a strength in that area of the game. You may value scrappy defense and smart transition play, but it may not have translated into results on the court. Yet.
How Common Are Teams With A First Ball Strength?
Of the 63 teams in this database1, 5 had a First Ball Strength2. That’s in the ball-park of 1-out-of-13 teams.
“Terminal Serving Strength” was actually the most common Team Profile among Power 5 schools. That makes sense; Terminal Serving is less correlated with First Ball and Transition than First Ball and Transition are to each other. That’s part of the purpose of the Triangle, to untangle these related-but-not-totally-related aspects of the game. So there’s going to be more teams that are noticeably strong or noticeably lagging in Terminal Serving than the two other two categories.
The last column there is what I’m calling “First Ball Index.” So instead of using a somewhat arbitrary “Strength” or “Weakness” designation, you can see the gradient. The more relatively strong First Ball is (compared to the other two areas), the higher the FB Index score and vice versa. So for example, Minnesota is a more skewed First Ball Weakness (or, said another way: relative Terminal Serve and Transition Strength) team than Texas Tech.3
How Successful Are Teams With A First Ball Weakness?
I included (conference) winning % in the above graph, so you can see that for yourself. If we’re using this (again, somewhat arbitrary) cut-off to form the profile of First Ball Strength, the average winning % was 55%, the equivalent of going about 17-13 over the course of a season.
A second way of looking at it is to correlation FB Index with Win %. The correlation in this sample was 0.09. That’s essentially zero. That doesn’t mean that teams with a First Ball Strength win less, it means that they could win more or less. The fact that a team has a First Ball Strength doesn’t predict whether they will be a winning or losing team.4 If First Ball Strength doesn’t predict winning, then neither does First Ball Weakness.
Nerd side note: it would be interesting to do more statistical tests on a bigger (multi-year) sample set. For example, the correlation to this crude index might be low, but higher (or lower) magnitudes of one index or another might correlate to success. Maybe it’s not important which strength you have, as long as you have a strength. Or is it more important to be balanced? Project for another day…
A third way is to look at tournament success this year. Of the 18 profiles in the Sweet 165, 1 of them (Minnesota) was a First Ball Strength profile. Since there’s 7 profiles6, you could say that First Ball Weakness was underrepresented. Also, 3 of those 4 made the Elite 8. Which tells us that First Ball Weakness doesn’t predict your regular record, but you can’t be successful in the NCAA Tournament probably nothing. But it’s interesting!
You could also say that, given that there were 5 teams in the sample with a First Ball Weakness, and 1 of them made it to the Sweet 16, that, given that you’re a Power 5 team, if you cultivate a First Ball Weakness, you have an 20% chance of reaching the Sweet 16. But it’s pretty easy to see you have some small sample size effects here.
So What Do I Do If This Is My Profile?
Here’s my takeaways of this profile exercise:
Avoid the reflex that calling something a “Weakness” is necessarily bad. I might need a rebrand. Calling a profile a Dual Strength Of Terminal Serving And Transition feels a bit long. Any ideas for better naming?
I don’t think this profile is a bad way to be successful. This is probably your typical good ball control team. It actually makes me think of Brazilian volleyball.7 They generally aren’t as aggressively terminal as the Euro teams but they take care of the ball and make you make mistakes. This is classic Minnesota volleyball since Hugh McCutcheon took over.
If I’m a positive Terminal Serving team, it might be because I just serve in a lot.8 The question is, can I do that while not allowing the other team to be in-system constantly? Minnesota, for example, is serving in a lot, but they are at 5% Ace and 42.5% Opponent Good Pass %. So they are not Louisville or Texas aggressive, but they aren’t serving lollipops. You’re setting yourself up to lose the First Ball game if you are too easy.
Going along with that, are your serving and block/defense tactics linked? If you’re back there ripping serves, you probably don’t need to be quite as tactical. But if you’re keeping it in, can you scout a little and figure out when your opponent is going to go to/away from certain hitters based on rotation, pass location, setter movement, etc? My conversation with the great KBB on this exact topic is a good place to get some info on this:
In short, I’d try to split up my First Ball game into Offense and Defense. Is there one of those halves I can upgrade? Based on my personnel, which is the faster upgrade?
If it’s offense, I’m looking at my sideout-by-pass quality. Are we good on Perfect Pass but go down on Medium? Or are we decent medium-system but don’t maximize our Perfect Pass offense?
What am I getting out of my middles? Sharpening up the middle attack is often a way to get a little more out of the First Ball game.
I’ll continue to share some training implications for First Ball Strength profiles. I’ll also analyze some matches where First Ball was either a deciding factor or a non-factor, which has implications if you’re trying to win via First Ball or in spite of an opponent’s First Ball Strength.
Drawing here from Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12, ACC, and SEC. I’m also using some VM numbers to pull these a little faster than running separate .dvw analyses for every team. This is going to be slightly less-accurate than the more detailed numbers I provided in my NCAA tournament analysis, but it turns dozens of hours of research into just hours. I’m okay with that trade-off right now.
There are a few teams that have both a “strength” in one area and a “weakness” in another. In this case: both Oklahoma and West Virginia also profiled as Terminal Serving Strength teams.
There’s more variability among teams in Terminal Serving than First Ball. So a smaller skew in First Ball will result in a bigger skew to the index than a skew in other categories.
Or more specifically, it didn’t predict that among Power-5 teams in 2021.
That’s a little confusing. First of all, BYU wasn’t in this sample because I only pulled from Power 5. (Sorry WCC!) But 3 teams (Nebraska, Georgia Tech, and Pitt) had “double-profiles,” so 16 - 5 + 3 = 18.
Terminal Serving Strength, Terminal Serving Weakness, First Ball Strength, First Ball Weakness, Transition Strength, Transition Weakness, Balanced.
Counterpoint: Georgia Tech was a First Ball Strength team this year.
All 5 profiled teams were under 8% service error.
"I don’t know, it seems about right to me." is my favorite line. It makes analyzing my not so great weekend tournament statistics a little easier to stomach. Thanks for keeping it light Joe!