Saturday, December 17, 2022

Live-Blogging NCAA Women's Championship Match (December 2022)

Texas leading Louisville 21-18 in Game 1. The Cardinals got off to a 3-0 lead, but ever since, the Longhorns have led consistently by anywhere from 1 to 4 points... Now 22-19 Texas... Logan Eggleston pacing the Horns with .538 hitting (8 kills and 1 error on 13 attempts)... Claire Chaussee leading Louisville with .429 hitting (7-1-14)... Anna DeBeer with only three swings thus far for the Cards... 24-21 Texas... Eggleston with her 10th kill (10-1-16, .563) to give Texas the opening game 25-22... Eggleston ends up with more attack attempts (16) than her teammates combined (14)... Longhorns, as a team, hit   .533 with only two hitting errors (18-2-30)... Cardinals not bad offensively, either, hitting .400 (15-3-30)...

Longhorns open up 3-0 lead in Game 2... Now 7-4 UT... Louisville only has one block for a point, which occurred early in Game 1... Only thing Horns struggling with is serving, with 7 errors on the night... Longhorn lead now 9-6... 11-6... Game 2 on the verge of getting out of hand for Louisville (if it hasn't already), with Texas leading 15-7... Cards with four straight points, closing to 15-11 on team's second block... Horns end Louisville rally, 16-11... Texas takes Game 2, 25-14, to put itself one game away from a national championship...

Louisville leading 7-5 in Game 3...  9-6 Cards on kill by DeBeer, who is now hitting .364 (6-2-11)... Another De Beer kill to make it 10-8 for UL... Texas with mini-rally to tie it 10-10... Chaussee kill (9-5-32, .125) makes it 12-10 Cards... Horns with three straight for 13-12 lead... Louisville hanging in, 16-all... UT with next two points, 18-16... Big roof for Texas (its 9th block on the night) to increase lead to 19-16... Now 20-16... UL still not going away, closes within 20-18... 20-19... 21-all... 22-21 Louisville... Texas not getting good swings lately, but ties it 22-22... Chaussee kill for 23-22 Cardinal lead... DeBeer kill for 24-22, an 8-2 Louisville run from down 20-16... DeBeer hitting .316 (9-3-19) on the night, matched closely by teammate Aiko Jones, .318 (8-1-22)... Texas stays alive in Game 3, 24-23 Cards... Chaussee hits long, letting UT tie the game 24-all. UL challenging call of no-touch... Challenge denied, so 24-24... Net violation Louisville (otherwise would have been Cardinal point as Eggleston hit ball long), match point 25-24 for Texas... Longhorn ace closes it out, 26-24, for three-game sweep and national title...

Saturday, December 10, 2022

Live Blogging NCAA Women's Elite Eight Saturday (December 2022)

A long day of volleyball is over and we have our Final Four teams for next week: Louisville, Texas, Pittsburgh, and San Diego. For the first time since the NCAA began overseeing the women's volleyball championship in 1981, there will not be any team from the Big 10 or Pac 12 in the Final Four (historical list of teams).  

Three of Saturday's four matches -- Oregon-Louisville, Pitt-Wisconsin, and USD-Stanford -- went to five games. One thing that stood out to me is how the Pitt-Wisconsin match appeared to be uniquely arduous in terms of the number of spike attempts compared to the two other five-game contests. Between them, the Panthers and Badgers took 402 swings (Pitt 203, Wisconsin 199), well above the number in the Oregon-Louisville (304; 152 each) and San Diego-Stanford (328; USD 166, Stanford 162) matches.

San Diego-Stanford: The Toreros and Cardinal have gone to five games... USD leading 8-6... Now 9-8 Toreros... Stanford ties it 9-9, but USD wins great rally to lead 10-9... Another exciting rally goes to San Diego for 11-9 lead... 12-9 Toreros on stuff block... USD closes it out 15-9, winning the final six points (from when it was 9-9) to advance to the Final Four... San Diego was very steady in its game-to-game hitting percentages. With the exception of Game 3 in which it hit .143, USD was right around the .300 mark in every game (.303 in Game 1, .371 in Game 2, .304 in Game 4, and .294 in Game 5). Stanford, on the other hand, was up and down: .394, .219, .333, and .217 in Games 1-4, before hitting .000 in the fifth (3 kills and 3 errors on 18 attempts). Granted, fifth games are only up to 15 points instead of 25 in the other games, but the Cardinal's 3 kills in Game 5 were well below their kill totals of the first four games (16, 13, 14, and 17).

Pittsburgh-Wisconsin: Panthers with an early 3-1 lead in the opening game... Pitt with back-to-back stuff blocks for a 6-3 lead... Badger hitting error makes it 7-3 Panthers... Wisconsin on 5-1 run to close from down 18-11 to within 19-16. Last five Badger kills from five different players (Smrek, Orzol, Crawford, Franklin, and Robinson)... Pitt attack error makes it 19-17... and another makes it 19-18... Last call overturned and Panthers' Serena Gray awarded a kill, 20-17... Courtney Buzzerio follows with another Pitt kill, making it 21-17 Panthers... Now 22-18... Reversal says last Pitt attack was not good, 21-18 Panthers... UW wins next five consecutive points (6-0 run in all) to take 23-21 lead.. Pitt ties 23-all, but two Wisconsin kills close out game 25-23... Badgers hit .163 (15-7-49) in Game 1 with 4 blocks (8 joint/assisted credits in the stats divided by 2), whereas Pitt hits .059 (11-8-51) with 3 blocks (6 joint/assisted)... Roughly 50 swings for each team in one game (shown in red above) is amazing... In today's first match, Louisville and Oregon each took 152 in a five-gamer (see below)...

Panthers trying to hang on in Game 2, their 22-15 lead having been cut to 22-18... Last call (a Devyn Robinson kill) now reversed into a hitting error, Pitt now up 23-17... Badgers respond with two straight kills to close within 23-19... Pitt takes Game 2, 25-21...

The teams split Games 3 and 4, the Panthers taking the former 25-21 and the Badgers taking the latter 25-19 to force a fifth game... With the exception of Game 4, Pitt has held late leads in all of the games, with Wisconsin mounting late runs either to overtake the Panthers (Game 1) or to at least make it closer (Game 2). Game 5 followed this storyline, with Pitt going up 11-6 but Wisconsin reeling off six straight points to lead 12-11 (all six points on kills, four by Julia Orzol). The teams trade the next two points, leaving UW up 13-12, but the Panthers take the last three points (all on kills, two by Courtney Buzzerio) to win the match and advance (play-by-play sheet).

Pitt ended up taking 203 total swings (with 67 kills and 23 errors for a .217 hitting percentage), whereas Wisconsin took 199 swings (with 74 kills and 21 errors for a .266 hitting percentage)... The Panthers, in part at least, made up for their hitting disadvantage by outserving the Badgers: Pitt amassed 8 aces with only 4 errors, whereas Wisconsin had 4 aces and 9 errors...

Ohio State-Texas: Longhorns looking to go up two games to one, leading 19-9 in the third. Previous game scores were 25-18 Texas in Game 1 and 25-21 Buckeyes in Game 2... The Horns' Logan Eggleston, featured in this ESPN.com article, thus far hitting .429 (12-3-21) on the evening... UT finishes off Game 3 25-13...

Ohio State not going away easily, as Buckeyes trail only 23-21 late in Game 4... Now 24-21 and match point on Eggleston kill... Another Eggleston kill closes out the game and match, 25-21... Eggleston finishes with .341 hitting percentage on the night (20-5-44). Among Buckeyes with 20 or more swings on the night, the hitting percentage leader is Emily Londot (.216, 14-6-37)...

Oregon-Louisville: The Ducks (No. 10 national seed and No. 8 in my Conference-Adjusted Combined Offensive-Defensive metric) are off to a fast start in Game 1, leading the Cardinals (No 2 national seed, No. 3 CACOD) 13-8... Oregon, whose .298 regular-season hitting percentage was second only to Texas (.337) among the top 16 national seeds, is currently hitting .500 (13 kills and 3 errors) on its first 20 spike attempts vs. Louisville... Match has tightened up, UO leading 17-16... Tied at 20-20... Cards up 23-22, in good part based on five Duck service errors... Louisville takes the first game 25-23 on -- what else? -- an Oregon service error (No. 6)... Ducks (.344, 17-6-32) outhit Cards (.280, 10-3-25), but still lose...

Game 2 also tight, with Cards leading 16-14... Ducks on the verge of tying the match, leading 24-22... UO prevails 25-23... Oregon follows up with 25-13 blowout in Game 3. When one team hits unbelievably well in a game -- Oregon, at a .500 clip (15-2-26) -- and the other team registers as many hitting errors as kills -- Louisville, with a .000 hitting percentage (7-7-27) -- a rout is the likely result and that is what we saw in Game 3...

The teams are mainly trading points at the start of Game 4, UL now up 10-8... Anna DeBeer pacing Cards with four kills and a joint block in this game... A DeBeer hitting error and kill by Oregon's Morgan Lewis tie the game 11-11... Still very close in this game -- a DeBeer kill ties it 16-all... 20-18 Louisville, as Aiko Jones contributes a kill and a solo block for the last two Cardinal points... Three straight Brooke Nuneviller kills put the Ducks ahead 21-20... DeBeer with a kill to tie it 21-21... Oregon now closing in on a victory, as Lewis kill and DeBeer error make it 23-21 UO... Duck service error (team's 13th) cuts lead to 23-22... Claire Chaussee kill for Louisville ties it 23-all... Mimi Colyer kill takes UO to match point at 24-23... Colyer error ties it right back up 24-24... Chaussee again to put Cards up 25-24... Lewis ties it 25-all, but Chaussee yet again for a 26-25 UL lead... Colyer stuffed to give Cardinals a 27-25 win and send the match to a fifth game...

Through four games (cumulatively):

  • Louisville 7 aces (5 by Elena Scott) and 11 service errors; Oregon 3 aces and 13 errors
  • Louisville 9 blocks (5 solo and 8 joint/assisted); Oregon 6 (0 solo and 12 joint/assisted).
Game 5 underway, score tied 2-2... Four straight Cardinal points (from down 2-3 to ahead 6-3)... 7-3 Louisville... Karson Bacon with a kill to end the Oregon drought, 7-4 Cards... Ducks cut their deficit to 7-5 but then commit their 14th service error, 8-5 UL... Two more Cardinal points (including DeBeer kill) make it 10-5 (8-2 run by UL)... DeBeer kill extends Cardinal lead to 11-5 and current run to 9-2... Another DeBeer kills makes it 12-5 (10-2 run)... Yet another DeBeer kill makes it 13-5 (11-2 run)... DeBeer misses on spike attempt, 13-6 UL... Oregon attack error give Louisville eight match points at 14-6... Jones kill closes it out, 15-6, Cards to the Final Four... Cards record their best single-game hitting percentage of the match in Game 5 at .350 (9-2-20), with Ducks' hitting going into negative territory (more errors than kills) at -.095 (3-5-21)... The following graph shows the teams' game-by-game hitting percentages... 


For the match overall, Oregon outhit Louisville .250 (64-26-152) to .217 (56-23-152). Both teams hit well short of their cumulative regular-season hitting percentage (Oregon .298, Louisville .289). The Cardinals allowed their regular-season opponents to hit only .148 and thus allowed the Ducks to hit more than .100 higher in this match. Oregon allowed its regular-season opponents to hit .207 and kept Louisville to around that level (.217). If one were looking only at hitting percentages, one would think Oregon won the match! Also, in Games 1, 2, and 4, the teams were pretty even in hitting percentage, so other factors such as serving likely played a role... 

Wednesday, November 30, 2022

2022 NCAA Women's Preview

The 2022 NCAA women's volleyball tournament, whose bracket gets underway tomorrow, features several teams currently on hot streaks. National No. 3-seed Wisconsin has won 18 straight matches, No. 4 Stanford has done likewise, and No. 5 University of San Diego has won 24 in a row.

Here at VolleyMetrics, come tournament time, the primary metric we look at is the Conference-Adjusted Combined Offensive-Defensive (CACOD) score (explained here). In a nutshell, the CACOD reflects the extent to which a team hits for a high percentage and holds its opponents to a low hitting percentage. This season's CACOD scores for the 16 national seeds appear below in the final column, under the heading "adjratio." 


In the 11 years the CACOD has existed, no team with a value below 1.91 has won the NCAA women's tourney. Hence, the teams appearing above the yellow highlight are most likely to win the championship.

To my surprise, No. 7-seed Nebraska emerged with the highest CACOD in the nation. The Huskers' .244 hitting percentage is well below those of the highly seeded teams. However, Nebraska allowed its opponents to hit a microscopic .129 (see Huskers statistics page). Also helping Nebraska achieve the highest CACOD score is the conference adjustment. Because the competition, night in and night out, is strongest in the Big 10 and Pac 12 (in my view), schools in those conferences get their ratio of offensive to defensive hitting percentage multiplied by 1.25, which is a larger adjustment factor than for all other conferences.*

No. 1 Texas had nearly the same CACOD as Nebraska, but finished slightly below the Huskers due to the Big 12's smaller adjustment factor in my system. No. 2 Louisville and No. 3 Wisconsin -- who battled in a five-game national semifinal a year ago -- have the present season's next-highest CACOD scores. The Badgers' offensive-to-defensive hitting-percentage ratio is notably below the Cardinals', but the Big 10's greater adjustment factor than the ACC's lifts Wisconsin. The defending NCAA champion Badgers suffered a few early-season losses this season as they regrouped from the loss of some key seniors, but now are playing at a very high level

I'll analyze matches throughout the next few weeks, so please check back often!

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*The Pac 12 has not had the same competitive depth in recent years, compared to when Stanford, UCLA, USC, Washington, Oregon, and even Cal were all performing at nationally elite levels. However, I am reluctant to lower a conference's adjustment factor without more evidence.

Sunday, May 8, 2022

Hawai'i Sweeps Long Beach State to Claim Second Straight NCAA Men's Championship

Hawai'i swept Long Beach State last night in Los Angeles to win its second straight NCAA men's championship. Scores were 25-22, 25-21, 25-20. Watching the ESPN telecast made me wish I had access to physical measurements, not just the box-score data I typically use. To my (potentially fallible) eyes, the Hawai'i hitters jumped higher and hit the ball with greater velocity and downward direction than most other spikers I have seen. Whether this is actually true or not is another matter. 

Hawaii's team hitting percentage of .434 (44 kills and only 8 errors on 83 attempts) and the fact Long Beach State recorded only one block all evening is certainly consistent with the Rainbow Warriors' hitting dominance that was apparent to my eyeballs. The Beach didn't hit badly either (.304, 41-17-79), just not on the same level as Hawai'i.

The championship match was actually the fourth contest between Hawai'i and Long Beach State this season. Long Beach State took a pair of 3-1 matches on its home court during Big West Conference play, whereas the Rainbow Warriors swept the Beach in the conference tourney in Hawai'i (albeit entirely in deuce games, 27-25, 28-26, 25-23).

Arguably an even bigger thorn for Hawai'i than Long Beach State was Ball State. The Cardinals swept two matches from the Rainbow Warriors back in January in Indiana (3-0 and 3-2). The teams then met for a third time in the NCAA semifinals, with UH narrowly winning (28-26, 19-25, 20-25, 25-20, 15-11). Hawai'i hit only .241 in this semifinal match, but rose to the occasion in Game 5 with a .571 percentage (9-1-14).

2023 NCAA Women's Preview

Sixth-four teams are alive at the moment, but it sure looks like Nebraska (28-1) and Wisconsin (26-3) will meet for a third time this season...