JQAS Article on Serve Reception, Setting, and Attack

A new issue of the online publication, the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, was announced today. Among the articles was one on volleyball by researchers from Greece, entitled "Does Effectiveness of Skill in Complex I Predict Win in Men’s Olympic Volleyball Games?"

The authors made a terminological distinction between "complex I (serve reception, setting, attack)" and "complex II (serve, block/defense, counterattack)" sequences, and focused on analyzing the former. Raters evaluated videotaped game footage with a software system, issuing grades (on a 0-4 scale) on serve reception and first attack (setting was not graded). Not surprisingly, high-level execution of both reception and attack were associated with winning. The authors used discriminant analysis, which is among the more complex techniques in the data analyst's arsenal. I would have liked to see more basic statistics, such as means and frequencies with, respectively, t-tests and chi-squares to distinguish winning and losing teams.

The article is available at: http://www.bepress.com/jqas/vol3/iss4/3. The journal requires a subscription, although free "guest" privileges are available to view a single article.

Zetou, Eleni; Moustakidis, Athanasios; Tsigilis, Nikolaos; and Komninakidou, Andromahi (2007) "Does Effectiveness of Skill in Complex I Predict Win in Men’s Olympic Volleyball Games?," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports: Vol. 3 : Iss. 4, Article 3.