2012 Olympic Volleyball

Olympic volleyball is now under way, both of the indoor and beach varieties. Most of my writings over the next two weeks will probably be on the indoor game. Suggestions for analyses to conduct are welcome. Simply use the Comments link at the bottom of this posting.

Looking back at the August 2008 archives that include my analyses of the Beijing Games, we see the specific skills that were most correlated with winning in men's and women's indoor pool play (where we have large numbers of matches). By correlation, we mean that the higher a team ranks in a given statistic (e.g., hitting percentage, blocks per set), the higher it will also rank in the win-loss standings.

 We'll see if the same patterns hold this year...

2012 NCAA Men's Final: UCI vs. USC

Shakespeare wrote, "What's past is prologue." That turned out most decisively not to be a useful frame to view last night's NCAA men's final between UC Irvine and USC.

As shown in yesterday's preview in the posting immediately below the current one, the Anteaters' Carson Clark had given no recent indication he could dominate the national championship match. In his two prior matches against the Trojans (in the teams' second meeting of the conference season and in the conference tournament), Clark had hit .204 and .103, respectively. And in Thursday night's NCAA semifinal vs Penn State, Clark's hitting percentage was .179.

However, the senior opposite (right-side) hitter may as well have been wearing a cape and an "S" across his chest last night vs. USC. As described in UCI's championship-match article, "Senior All-American Carson Clark had a match-high 22 kills, hitting .465, and added eight digs and three service aces as UCI (26-5) topped the Trojans for the second time in nine days."

Clark's .465 hitting percentage came on 22 kills with only 2 errors, on 43 spike attempts. Though set more sparingly, Dan McDonnell (.571, 5-1-7) and Connor Hughes (.357, 13-3-28) also posted fine hitting nights for UCI. The Anteaters' Kevin Tillie, who came in on fire, hit only .100 (11-8-30). Chris Austin, a mid-season replacement at setter, not only orchestrated the Irvine offense to a .320 team hitting percentage (with 'SC registering only 7 team blocks), but led the team by a wide margin with 15 digs. With Austin getting so many digs, other players had to set the hitters some of the time and, as a sign of the Anteaters' versatility, five players other than Austin recorded at least 1 assist.

The Trojans' go-to guy, outside hitter Tony Ciarelli, hit a respectable .289 for the match (18-5-45), but was held to only a single service ace (USC's only one of the match). Opposite hitter Tanner Jansen provided unexpected offensive spark, hitting .500 (10-1-18), and steady middle blocker Steven Shandrick chimed in with a .333 evening (6-1-15).

UCI-USC Men's Final Preview

UC Irvine and USC will meet in tonight's NCAA men's final. During the teams' head-to-head match-ups in the regular conference season, each team won at home, UCI on January 27 and USC on April 7. The Anteaters defeated the Trojans in the teams' third match, a semifinal of the MPSF conference tournament.

With an eye toward identifying the key hitters in tonight's final and speculating on which players need to do well for their team to win, I've created the following chart (on which you can click to enlarge it). The chart lists each team's most frequently set attackers and their hitting percentages (along with number of spike attempts) in the head-to-head USC-UCI matches, plus each team's NCAA semifinal win (USC over Lewis; and UCI over Penn State).

The Trojans are led by 6-foot-6 senior outside hitter Tony Ciarelli, who was recently named the AVCA national men's player of the year. In the matches charted above, Ciarelli has led 'SC in spike attempts, sometimes by a huge margin. Almost like clockwork, Ciarelli gets about 10 attempts per game (set). Perhaps because of other teams focusing their block on Ciarelli, his hitting percentages have been inconsistent in the matches above. In addition to his hitting, Ciarelli's serve is also a major weapon.

USC's Robert Feathers led the MPSF in blocks per game this year. The 6-8 frosh player doesn't seem to get too many balls to hit, but does respectably when he is set. Teammate Steven Shandrick, a 6-7 senior, tied for eighth in blocks per game, but seems to be a bigger part of the Trojans' offensive attack.

Kevin Tillie, a 6-6 junior who made his way to Irvine via France and Canada, is clearly the Anteaters' offensive focal point. Other than the regular-season match at USC, Tillie has been dominant in the matches listed above. A key to tonight's final may be how well UCI's middle blockers, Dan McDonnell (6-6 senior) and Scott Kevorken (6-9 soph), attack. Each has done well recently.

UCI's Carson Clark was second in the conference to Ciarelli in aces per game and, as a team, the Anteaters (1.62/game, first in the MPSF) actually topped the Trojans in this category (1.19/game, third).

On the defensive side, 'SC led the conference in lowest opponents' hitting percentage (.185), whereas UCI was fifth at .265. The Trojans far outperformed the Anteaters in both blocking (second in the conference vs. ninth) and digging (fourth vs. eleventh).

I would slightly favor USC, based on the home-court advantage, although the Anteaters beat the Trojans on the latter's home court in the MPSF tourney. Can UCI do it again? Tonight's match is also a rematch of the 2009 final, won by Irvine, in which the Anteaters greatly increased their blocking performance.

NCAA Men's Final Four

The NCAA men's Final Four gets underway tonight in Los Angeles, with host USC (MPSF regular-season champion) taking on Lewis (Illinois) from the MIVA in one semifinal, and UC Irvine (MPSF tourney champion) taking on Penn State from the EIVA. USC's media notes are available here.

In anticipation of the action, I was reading some of Off the Block's unparalleled coverage of men's collegiate volleyball, where I came across a transcript from USC coach Bill Ferguson's press conference. The following quote jumped out at me:

Q: Can you talk about USCʼs rise from a slow start?

BF: Most of our rise, or the streak, that all came about when (Maddison) McKibbin became healthy again. We went into the season knowing weʼd have two opposites that would probably be fairly equal in ability with Maddison and Tanner (Jansen). With the added notion that McKibbin could pass and play on the left and that gave us some flexibility. Maddison sprained his ankle on the first day of practice after Christmas break and sprained it badly. The Pepperdine match at home toward the end of February [actually Feb. 10] was the first time he got back on the court with us...

It is true that the February win over Pepperdine launched the Trojans on an 18-match winning streak, which UCI snapped in the MPSF tournament. Here at VolleyMetrics, of course, our job is to break down the numbers and seek specific evidence of whether/how McKibbin may have lifted USC's performance.  As longtime readers know, I use hitting percentage as my workhorse statistic for evaluating success, as it is well correlated with winning matches.

Baseball has the concept of "protection," namely that having many good hitters in the batting order "protects" a star hitter by not allowing opposing hurlers to "pitch around" him. If a pitcher doesn't throw any strikes to a star hitter, it will result in a walk and just give the other good hitters a baserunner potentially to drive in. (That's the idea of protection in theory; in practice, the phenomenon appears greatly overstated.)

Perhaps McKibbin's return, in his opposite/right-side hitter position, offered protection, in a sense, to the other hitters. Having one more good spiker available may limit other teams' ability to focus their blocking on other Trojan hitters. Ferguson also noted McKibbin's passing ability, which could help 'SC run its offense "in system" and thus lead to better overall hitting percentage.

As it turns out, the Trojans had six opponents whom they played once before and once after McKibbin's return, in MPSF regular-season play ('SC faced some opponents, such as BYU and Hawai'i, either twice before or twice after McKibbin's return). Playing against the six conference opponents before McKibbin's return, USC averaged a .285 team hitting percentage. Playing the same six opponents after his return, the Trojans hit an average .328. It's a small sample of matches, to be sure, but 'SC did appear to hit a little better after McKibbin's return. The following graphic breaks down USC's hitting percentage by match:

Against UCI, the men of Troy's hitting improved noticeably in the teams' second conference match to .287, compared to .234 in the first match. McKibbin himself was a major contributor in the second UCI match, registering a .625 percentage (5 kills and 0 errors on  8 swings). In the third Trojan-Anteater battle, in the MPSF tourney semifinals, UCI held USC to a .194 hitting percentage and McKibbin to a .000 night (2-2-14).

The Trojans' hitting improved most dramatically against UCLA. However, with USC's percentage being only .041 the first time, it probably would have risen with or without McKibbin in the second match (he hit .217 in USC's second encounter with the Bruins). There was only one other opponent, Cal State Northridge, against whom USC improved its team hitting percentage with McKibbin in the line-up (with him contributing a .312 evening).

As noted above, McKibbin also received praise from Coach Ferguson for his passing. Although statistical "digs" and passing are not identical (digs refer only to keeping the ball alive on an opponent's attack attempt), McKibbin did record three matches with 7 or more digs.

In conclusion, I think it's fair to say that McKibbin made some nice contributions to USC's success in the second half of the season. However, neither the team's nor McKibbin's statistics show a huge turnabout with his return

2012 MPSF Tourney Preview

The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) men's tournament begins tonight, with the top eight finishers in the conference standings taking part. The winner of the tournament receives an automatic berth in the four-team NCAA tournament, along with champions from the Eastern and Midwestern conferences. The one at-large bid almost certainly will go to the best remaining MPSF team after the conference tourney, as selected by an NCAA committee.

To help predict the outcome of the MPSF tournament (and down the line, the NCAA championship), I'm using what I call my Combined Offensive/Defensive ranking. Its main feature is the ratio of a team's hitting percentage for the season divided by the hitting percentage it allowed its opponents. When teams come from different conferences (as in an NCAA tournament), I also apply a multiplicative weight to each team's ratio to represent strength of conference, yielding what I call the CACOD (Conference-Adjusted Combined Offensive/Defensive ranking). Because all teams in the MPSF tourney are from the same conference, there is no need to apply the weights.

The CACOD, which I introduced last fall for the NCAA women's tourney, was as successful as more-established ranking formulas at predicting the winners of the women's tournament matches.

In the table below, I show the COD values for the eight teams in the MPSF field, based on a statistics report from the league's website. Statistics were available for both the entire regular season and conference-only matches. The two would yield similar, but not identical, rankings when applying teams' own and opposition hitting percentages to obtain CODs. Whereas the conference-only stats might be best for predicting the conference tournament, the full-season stats might be best for predicting the outcomes of NCAA-tourney matches, especially since many of the MPSF teams played against top non-conference opponents such as Ohio State and Penn State during the season.

Based on the above COD rankings, No. 2 Stanford looks to be an upset candidate with its relatively low value (1.23) for such a highly seeded team. On the other hand, No. 5 UCLA (1.51) may do surprisingly well.

Analysis of BYU Men's Two Wins Over USC

Because conference play gets underway very quickly in men's college volleyball (usually just after an early-season tournament or two) and the top teams tend to be concentrated in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF), fans don't have to wait very long for marquee match-ups to take place.

Just this past weekend, No. 1 BYU hosted No. 5 USC for a pair of matches (BYU and Hawai'i always play a given opponent in a two-match home series or road series, presumably to cut down on travel). Also, No. 3 UCLA hosted No. 4 Stanford.

I will focus on the BYU-USC series, as better inferences can be made from two matches than from one. BYU won both matches, but each was highly competitive. The Cougars took Friday night's first match in four games (sets), and Saturday night's rematch in five (15-13 in the fifth, in fact).

As is customary, I stress hitting percentages and the teams' allocation of spike attempts. The following graphic (on which you can click to enlarge) presents this information for the Cougars' and Trojans' main hitters.

As can be seen, the stalwart for BYU was Taylor Sander, a 6-foot-4 sophomore outside (left-side) hitter who hit .419 and .383 in the two matches, taking an average of 45 swings per night. Robb Stowell, a 6-7 senior opposite (right-side) hitter, hit .375 the second night on 40 attempts, after hitting only .200 the first. Russ Lavaja (6-7, junior) contributed .364 and .455 offensive outings, although as is common for a middle blocker he had relatively few spike attempts.

I watched the latter parts of Friday night's match on BYU TV and I can tell you that Sander and Stowell were just pummeling the ball.

'SC was led by two pillars of last year's team. Tony Ciarelli (6-6, senior) and Steven Shandrick (6-7, senior). Ciarelli was very steady, hitting .351 and .364 in the two matches; on Saturday, he took a Herculean 55 spike attempts. Shandrick hit .500 and .375.

The Trojans also feature a number of frosh players, led by setter Micah Christenson. Fellow newcomer MB Robert Feathers led USC with 8 block assists on Friday, but didn't do much (statistically at least) on Saturday. MB Ben Lam, who played only in Saturday's match, recorded an error-free 7 kills on 8 attempts, for an .875 hitting percentage.

By Game 5 of Saturday's match, the two teams' offenses were firing on all cylinders, with the Cougars outhitting the Trojans, .545 (13 kills and only 1 error, on 22 swings) to .474 (10-1-19).

BYU outblocked USC, 15-11 in total team blocks Friday and 13-9.5 Saturday. (There really is no such thing as a half-block in the aggregate; what happens is that on a triple-block, each player is credited with a half-block instead of a one-third block, resulting in the "phantom" half-block in the totals.)

Keeping with the theme of hot-hitting, UCLA registered a .376 percentage in sweeping Stanford. Leading the Bruins (among players with 10 or more swings) were MB Thomas Amberg (.600), OH Gonzalo Quiroga (.538), and MB Weston Dunlap (.333). The Cardinal's Brad Lawson, star of the 2010 NCAA championship match, hit .333, but Stanford as a whole hit only .179. UCLA also enjoyed a large blocking advantage, 8.5-2.

A couple of days ago, the Los Angeles Times had a feature article on UCLA coach Al Scates, who is retiring at the end of this, his 50th, season at the Bruin helm.

Hot Hand in Volleyball?

Science News has just published an article on research by German and Austrian investigators purporting to document a hot hand in volleyball spiking, and the reporter was nice enough to contact me for comment. (I operate another blog, on the statistical study of sports streakiness, and even have a book out on the subject.)

A hot hand in this context would mean that a player who has successfully put away a few kills in a row would have a higher likelihood of a kill on his or her next spike than the player's long-term kill percentage would suggest. A cold hand would represent the opposite, that a player whose last few spike attempts have resulted in errors (e.g., ball hit out of bounds) would have higher than usual odds of an error on the next attempt than his/her long-term percentages would suggest.

Within the constraints of the data set to which the authors had access (partial game-sequence data from top players in a German men's professional league), the analyses were conducted with full rigor and in a manner consistent with previous hot hand research. However, as I elaborate below, I feel there was at least one major limitation in the available data.

One type of analysis done by the authors used the runs test. This statistical technique requires the researcher first to list the sequence of events, in this case, a given player's order of kills (K) and errors (E). A "run" is an uninterrupted sequence of the same outcome, either all K's or all E's. The following hypothetical sequence, with few runs, would indicate streaky performance (i.e., clustering of K's and of E's):

KKKKEEEKKKKK (3 runs)

Another hypothetical sequence (with the same number of total attempts), this time with many runs, would indicate less (or absent) streakiness:

KKEKEEKKKKEK (7 runs)

According to the Science News piece:

An analysis of playoff data from the 1999/2000 season for 26 top scorers in Germany’s first-division volleyball league identified 12 players as having had scoring runs that could not be chalked up to chance. Hot-handed players’ shots contained fewer sequences of consecutive scores than expected by chance, the result of a small number of especially long scoring runs.

As we know, however, there is a third category of outcome for spike attempts, namely the ball is dug up (or otherwise kept in play) by the defense, and the rally continues. As I told the reporter, I definitely think those hit attempts should have been included in the analyses, but they apparently were unavailable in the data set the authors received. Hitting errors were very rare in the data, so balls kept in play may have been a better measure than errors of unsuccessful spike attempts.

(Cross-posted with Hot Hand in Sports.)