Under the Radar, Part I: Lauren Wicinski

Last Friday, October 7, user "bucky415" launched a discussion topic on VolleyTalk regarding women's collegiate players who might be considered "under the radar" nationally. Specifically, readers were urged to nominate players "from programs outside of the top conferences that people here see being candidates for national honors this year." Bucky made his own suggestions, to which interested readers added names. Bucky's primary suggestion was:

Lauren Wicinski from Northern Illinois. She is a 6'1" sophomore outside hitter who plays all around and is just putting up ridiculous hitting numbers. The Huskies swept Western Michigan at home tonight, and she had 25 kills and hit .667, following up a four set win over Toledo where she had 39 kills and hit .484. For the season, she is averaging 5.77 kills per set and hitting .341 against some pretty solid competition.

Your VolleyMetrics analyst feels statistics can contribute to the discussion, so tonight we begin an ongoing series on "under the radar" players, starting with an in-depth look at Wicinski's offensive performances in key matches. Quality of the opposition is an important factor. If, for example, Toledo tends to get lit up by a lot of different hitters (which it does), then Wicinski's big numbers must be taken with a grain of salt. Following this logic, I selected several of Northern Illinois's more nationally noteworthy matches, recorded Wicinski's hitting percentage against a given opponent, and then compared it to other outside hitters' (or opposites') hitting percentages against the same opponents.

Let's start with Toledo as an opponent. As shown in the graphic to the right (and also noted above), Wicinski hit .484 against the Rockets. Two Michigan State players, Gina Lang and Jenilee Rathje, also hit above .450 against Toledo this season, and three Ohio State outsides hit in the .300s vs. the Rockets. Nothing in these comparisons should take away from Wicinski's performance against Toledo, but we now know that it's not unusual for the Rockets to give up big hitting nights. I wanted to do the same thing for Western Michigan as an opponent, but I didn't feel the Broncos had played enough quality teams.

Cincinnati, in addition to facing Northern Illinois and Wicinski, has played against what I would consider five nationally prominent teams, so let's next consider the Bearcats as an opponent (see graphic on left). Wicinski hit .550 in her match against Cincinnati, a figure exceeded (very slightly) only by Illinois's Liz McMahon when she faced the Bearcats. Several other hitters registered hitting percentages from the upper-.300s to low-.400s against Cincinnati. Thus, whereas the Bearcats may not be the greatest defensive team, I would argue that Wicinski still acquits herself well in this comparison.

Texas A&M is another common opponent against which Wicinski looks good relative to other leading spikers. Though the Aggies seem to have kept some pretty good hitters in check (or at least under .300) this season, Wicinski's .368 vs. A&M is second only to Texas's Bailey Webster (of the players studied), who torched A&M for a .421 evening on October 5.

As seen in these graphics, Wicinski rarely commits hitting errors (e.g., spiking the ball out of bounds or getting stuff blocked for an immediate point by the opponents).

Not all comparisons are so favorable to Wicinski. As seen at left, she hit only .209 vs Iowa State, a team against which other hitters have recorded much higher percentages this season. Granted these "other hitters" are among the nation's very best: the aforementioned Webster, Nebraska's Gina Mancuso and Morgan Broekhuis, and Florida's Tangerine Wiggs and Kelly Murphy. If the worst that can be said about Wicinski is that she's perhaps a cut below these players, that ain't bad. These analyses, of course, don't take into account other factors, such as setter quality and the presence of sharp-hitting teammates who can prevent other teams from focusing on one prominent spiker.

The remaining comparisons are based on sparser data. Northern Iowa is another team against which Wicinski struggled, hitting only .100. This was one of her most error-prone matches, but she also had 18 of her 40 spike attempts kept in play (40 minus her 13 kills and 9 errors). Northern Iowa seems adept at frustrating hitters in general, though. Of the outside hitters/opposites listed, only Iowa State's Kelsey Petersen enjoyed some success against the Panthers, albeit in a Cyclones' loss. Finally, we conclude our analysis with limited comparisons of Wicinski to other hitters against Creighton and Marquette.



Wicinski hit respectably in both matches. Her .302 against Creighton was exceeded by Broekhuis's .387 when Nebraska played the Blue Jays. Wicinski's .265 vs. Marquette was topped by a .333 registered by Minnesota's Ashley Wittman.

What should we conclude from this exercise? I think Wicinski deserves to be included among the nation's top outside (and opposite-side) hitters, but not quite at the very pinnacle. Being a sophomore, however, she has two more years to get there!