Live-Blogging NCAA Women's Elite Eight Saturday (December 2021)

A long day of play is over. See below for my real-time statistical commentary on all four matches (with thanks to the NCAA women's volleyball website for statistics and play-by-play sheets, which were very helpful when I missed a play)...

Texas-Nebraska: Coming up soon for the remaining spot in the Final Four with Pitt, Louisville, and Wisconsin... Game 1: Texas out to early 4-1 lead... Nebraska turns things around, taking 13-9 lead... Now 14-10... Cornhusker lead up to 17-10, now 17-11... Nebraska in good shape, leading 23-15... And the Huskers close it out 25-19. Game-1 hitting percentages: NU .242, UT .125... Game 2: Nebraska leading 11-10... Huskers expand lead to 20-12, looking likely to take a two-games-to-none lead... Three straight for Longhorns, closing their deficit to 20-15... Texas closes further to 22-20... Excellent dig by Horns on hard-hit ball leads to kill in transition, now 22-21... 22-all on another UT kill... Airmailed serve puts NU back up, 23-22... 23-all after long rally... Another long serve by Texas gives Nebraska game-point, 24=23... Huskers pound overpass to take Game 2, 25-23 (a lot closer than it looked like it was going to be)... Game 3: Texas up 6-5, thanks to some big blocks. On the evening (cumulatively), we have seven total blocks for the Horns and five for the Huskers... Nebraska goes up 8-7, hoping to avoid the reverse-sweep suffered by Washington Thursday night vs. Texas... Still close: 15-14 Huskers... Now 17-14, the most recent point coming on a Nebraska ace serve... UT with two straight to close to 17-16... Now 20-19 NU... UT airmails another serve, making it 21-19... Nebraska can't put away a free-ball opportunity and Texas is back to within 21-20. Horns tie it 21-all... Texas serve into net gives Nebraska 22-21 lead, but Skylar Fields kill ties it at 22-all... Molly Phillips kill puts Longhrons up 23-22, T/O Nebraska... Texas serve called wide, but under challenge... Call reversed and ruled an ace to give Horns 24-22 lead... Another UT service error (into net), making it 24-23... Big UT block gives it game, 25-23. Texas now up to 11 total blocks (cumulatively)...  After three games (cumulatively), Fields hitting .344 (13-2-32).  Game 4: Nebraska leading 9-7... Now 11-10 Huskers... Announcer Paul Sunderland showing his statistical chops, noting that NU first-years Lindsay Krause (pronounced Krowzy) and Ally Batenhorst are hitting at a much higher percentage tonight than their percentages for the season.

Krause: Tonight .500 (12-2-20) ----- Season .219
Batenhorst: Tonight .476 (10-0-21) ----- Season .152

Nebraska ups lead to 15-12... 16-12 on Texas attack called a throw or push rather than a hit. Sunderland contends that similar types of contact have been taking place all night without being flagged. Now 17-12... 18-12... Now up to 20-12 Huskers... 21-13 NU... 21-14... UT block for 21-15... Longhorn kill for 21-16. T/O Nebraska... Huskers challenge whether UT's Logan Eggleston had her foot on 10-foot-line before going up for attack. Declined, so still 21-16... Texas hits long, but challenges whether Nebraska committed net violation. Challenge upheld, so 21-17... Longhorns with ace for 21-18... Mystery call (possibly NU net violation) for 21-19...  Batenhorst kills saves NU after shaky serve-receipt, 22-19 Huskers... Nebraska block for 23-19... Fields (UT) and Kayla Caffey (NU) trade kills for 24-20 Husker lead... Fields kill off the block keeps Texas alive, 24-21...  Krause kill sends Huskers to Final Four, 25-21 in Game 4...

Wisconsin-Minnesota is also coming on the air in-progress, with the Badgers leading Game 1 by a 19-15 tally... The Badgers finish off the opener 25-18, outhitting the Gophers .304 (19-5-46) to .222 (9-1-36). Minnesota avoided hitting errors in Game 1 (only one), but a very large share of their spikes were kept in play. UW middle Dana Rettke is off to a hot start hitting (.625, 5-0-8), whereas UM's go-to, right-side hitter Stephanie Samedy, is not (.071, 2-1-14). Without a great night from Samedy, for Minnesota it will be a calamity... Game 2: Minnesota out to a 10-8 lead... Now 15-13 Gophers... 15-14...15-all... And Wisconsin pulls ahead 16-15. Three kills from Jade Demps, two from Julia Orzol, and one from Devyn Robinson have powered a Badger 6-1 scoring run from 10-14 to 16-15... Now 17-all... 20-19 Badgers on stuff block; hitting over the 6-foot-8 Rettke and 6-foot-9 Anna Smrek is, pardon the pun, a tall task for Minnesota... Gophers hanging in, however, 21-all... Samedy has upped her hitting percentage to .273 (7-1-22). Now 22-all... Rettke slides over to the right for a kill to make it 23-22, followed by a Rettke ace making it 24-22... UW hits wide, bringing Gophers within 24-23. Samedy kill from the back row ties things at 24-all... Minnesota gets two good swings, but Wisconsin there with the block each time (the first time fielded by Gophers, the second time a stuff-block for a Badger point), giving Wisconsin 25-24 lead... Gophers hit wide for 26-24 Badger win... Game 2 hitting percentages: Wisconsin .342, Minnesota .275... Blocks (cumulative) through two games are even at four apiece... Game 3: Minnesota leads 8-7, as Gophers continue to play Badgers on even terms of late... Ace on serve that hits net and trickles over gives UW a 10-9 lead... Badgers starting to open up some daylight, 13-10, although Minnesota is challenging a no-touch call on a ball it hit out... Challenge denied, so score remains 13-10... 17-15 Badgers... 18-15... Gophers with three straight to tie it 18-all, the last point coming on a Samedy back-row kill... Badger block for 19-18... Ace (Minnesota lets serve land that was way in) for 20-18... Smrek kill for 21-18... Two more for Wisconsin to make it 23-18.. Gophers rebound with three to come within 23-21, but this time it's the Badgers challenging a no-touch call... Hard to tell on the replay (as many touch/no-touch calls are), but perhaps Minnesota blocker's finger bent a tiny bit, suggesting a touch... Challenge denied, so score remains 23-21... Rettke slide kill for 24-21, match-point... UW hits long, 24-22... Rettke with another slide kill for the match and Badger trip to the Final Four... Rettke finishes at .520 (15-2-25), Robinson at .391 (11-2-23), and Demps .312 (7-2-16) for Wisconsin. The durable Samedy, with 42 swings in three games, finishes at .214 (12-3-42), with Minnesota teammate Airi Miyabe hitting .296 (13-5-27).

Louisville-Georgia Tech started before the end of Pitt-Purdue, so by the time I started watching the Cardinals and Yellowjackets, Louisville had already taken the Game 1 (25-18)... Game 2:  According to an ESPN studio host, Georgia Tech had not won even a single game from its Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) mate Louisville since 2016. That streak is now over, the Yellowjackets winning Game 2 by a 25-21 score. Georgia Tech upped its hitting percentage from .116 in Game 1 to .281 in Game 2... Louisville's hitting percentage moved in the opposite direction (.281 to .152). Game 3: Louisville regains the upper hand, winning 25-21... The Cardinals close it out, 25-20, to advance...

Pitt-Purdue underway... Game 1: After a slow start (Purdue starting out with 4-1 lead), Pitt leads 11-10... ESPN graphic points out Boilermakers' height advantage, but Panthers scoring kills with no problem when in-system. Pitt also has a couple of stuff-blocks... Panthers lead 15-14 at a TV break. even though Purdue hitting .500 (10-2-16). Pitt opening up a little daylight with 18-15 lead, hitting .444 (10-2-18)... Panthers up their lead to 21-17... Pitt up 23-19, running the middle to great effect... Panthers close out Game 1, 25-20... A real slugfest in Game 1, with Pitt hitting .571 (19-3-28) and Purdue hitting .478 (14-3-23)...  Game 2: 7-4 Purdue... Pitt getting hot, takes 9-8 lead. Still early, of course, but Panthers' Serena Gray crushing it in the middle (1.000, 5-0-5)... 13-all... 16-15 Pitt; Panthers with two service errors in Game 2... 18-17 Pitt... 19-18 Pitt... Now 19-all... Game-2 hitting much colder thus far: Pitt .172, Purdue .143... 20-all... 21-all... 22-all... Purdue now up 24-22... 24-all... 25-24 Purdue... Another Gray kill to tie it 25-all... 26-all... 27-all... 28-all... Purdue takes it, 30-28. Pitt just couldn't close on some free-ball opportunities...  Through two games: Pitt 25 digs, Purdue 23...  Game 3: Early 5-2 lead for Pitt... 11-6 Panthers... Boilers on a run, closing to within 12-10. T/O Pitt... Here's an odd statistic, considering how close this game is: Pitt hitting .727 in this game (8-0-11), whereas Purdue hitting .000 (4-4-14)... Two in a row for Pitt, as it leads 14-10... Now 14-11 on Purdue block; Boilermakers up to six stuffs for the match... 14-12... 15-13 Panthers and now 16-13... 16-14... 16-15 on a Purdue ace... Gray annihilates another set to the middle to make it 17-15 Panthers... 18-15... 19-15. Purdue T/O. Pitt's Game-3 hitting now .300 (12-3-30). You didn't expect the .727 to last, did you?... 20-15 Pitt... 21-15... 22-15, looks like it's slipping away from the Boilers, but don't forget the comeback vs. BYU... Three straight points for Purdue, now 22-18 Pitt; Panthers call time... Airmailed Purdue serve makes it 23-18... Boilers with nice quick-hit down the middle for 23-19... Gray back in the front row for Pitt, so you know what that means: 24-19... Pitt kill ends Game 3, 25-20... Cumulatively through three games, Pitt's Serena Gray hitting an error-free .750 (12-0-16)... Game 4: Purdue with a 5-4 lead... Now, 10-all... 12-10 Pitt...  Purdue has been making most of the miracle saves in the match (as per my memory), but on this last point, it was Pitt, 13-10... 14-10... Boilermaker kill for 14-11... Panthers return the favor for 15-11... Pitt starting to pull away a little, leading 17-11... However, you can't count Purdue out until the ref's whistle blows on the 25th (or whatever game-winning total) point for the other team... 19-11 Pitt... Three Purdue points cut its deficit to 19-14 and prompt Pitt T/O... Game-4 hitting percentages: Pitt .348 (9-1-23), Purdue .000 (9-9-33)... Panthers rebound with next two points to make it 21-14, T/O Purdue... 24-14 Pitt, 10 match-points. One is staved off, but no more than that... Your Game-4 final is 25-15, sending Pitt to the Final Four... ESPN color commentator Missy Whittemore ( a former setter) made the interesting point late in the match that Purdue did not seem to trust its front-row hitters at the time, instead setting players in the back row (who must launch their jump from behind the 10-foot line).

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I think this is my first-ever Volleymetrics "pregame coverage," with the first of today's four regional finals roughly 30 minutes away. My primary thought heading into the action is the demise (in the short term, at least) of West Coast volleyball. When I covered the inaugural NCAA women's volleyball tournament for the UCLA Daily Bruin 40 years ago (screenshots below), the teams in the Final Four were USC, UCLA, University of the Pacific, and San Diego State (prior to 1981, women's collegiate sports were entirely under the auspices of the AIAW). Of the eight remaining teams playing today, none are from the Pac 12 or any other West Coast conference (OK, BYU was extremely close, Washington a little less so).

Live-Blogging NCAA Women's Sweet Sixteen Thursday (December 2021)

It's wall-to-wall NCAA women's volleyball today on ESPN-U and ESPN+ (a subscription service), with an 11:00 am Central start to Sweet Sixteen matches... In the following paragraphs, I offer my thoughts on several of the matches (most recent on top)...

No. 10 seed Nebraska, which swept unseeded Illinois twice this season during B1G play, leads the Illini 19-12 in Game 1... Huskers take it 25-12... Game 2 also to Nebraska, 25-21... The Huskers close out the match 25-17 for their third sweep of Illinois this season. The Huskers' hitting percentages across the three games were nothing, if not consistent: .250, .263, .263.

Upset in the making? No. 15 Washington finishes off No. 2 Texas 25-19 in Game 1... Huskies keeping it up, leading 17-13 in Game 2... Now 20-16... Huskies two points away in Game 2, 23-19... And UW closes out Game 2, 25-20... Washington's hitting percentages in the first two games are torrid: .387 and .414. Only 2 hitting errors for the Huskies in Game 2 along with 14 kills (on 29 attempts). Horns hit a strong .364 in Game 2, but to no avail... U-Dub outblocking Texas 5-3 on the evening (as of early Game 3)... I go do something else for a bit and now the match has totally turned around... Texas leads 10-7 in Game 5, having won Games 3 and 4 by scores of 25-22 and 25-9... Now 12-8 Longhorns in the fifth... 13-8... 14-8... Texas takes Game 5 by a score of 15-9 for the "reverse sweep." After hitting so well in the first two games, the Huskies' percentages in the final three games fell to .154, -.036, and .083... Texas hit .314 in Game 3, then went wild in Games 4 (.500, 13-1-24) and 5 (.500, 6-1-10). To repeat: Texas makes just one hitting error in each of the last two games!

No. 13 UCLA trying to hang on at No. 4 Wisconsin, trailing two games to none and 18-14 in Game 3...  Badgers finish it off 25-17, setting up an all-B1G regional final vs. Minnesota...

One of today's winning teams recorded the hitting percentages over five games shown above. Who is it? Scroll down for answer...

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It's Minnesota, which lifted its hitting percentage from the low-mid .100s in the first four games to .318 in the fifth. The No. 12 Gophers dug themselves into a bit of a hole, trailing No. 5 Baylor two games to one. But Minnesota prevailed 25-23 in Game 4 and 15-10 in the decider (link).

We've had three sweeps so far today. No. 1 Louisville over No. 16 Florida (link), No. 3 Pitt over unseeded Kansas (link), and No. 8 Georgia Tech over No. 9 Ohio State (link).

It's a tale of two cities (make that games) in the match-up of No. 6-seed Purdue and No. 11 BYU (live box score). The Boilermakers took the first game 25-12 (outhitting the Cougars .379 to -.179), but BYU has turned it on in Game 2. Trailing 5-8, BYU ran off 10 straight points to open up a 15-8 lead. A streak like that has to be very rare in NCAA tournament matches. During this run, the Cougars' strategic short serving was preventing Purdue from even getting many decent swings. BYU, on the other hand, got a lot of good attack attempts and made good on them... BYU wraps up Game 2, 25-16, outhitting Purdue .303 to .171... Early Game-3 edge to BYU, 6-3... The Cougars have led Game 3 most of the way, but things are getting a little closer at 22-20, BYU. Now 23-21... Kill to make it 24-21 Cougars... and game, 25-21. Without some nice digs, Purdue would have lost the game even more decisively... Game-3 hitting percentages: BYU .406 (14 kills and only 1 hitting error on 32 attempts), Purdue .172... Boilers bouncing back, however, off to 4-0 lead in Game 4. Purdue lead up to 6-0 before BYU gets first point... 19-9 Purdue, looks like we're heading for a fifth game... Indeed we are, Purdue wins 25-13 (outhitting BYU .379 to .062)... Cougars out to 3-1 lead in Game 5... Now 4-1... 5-1... Returning from time-out, Purdue with quick three points to close within 5-4... Big BYU block to up lead to 6-4... 7-4 after BYU ace... 7-5... 7-6... 7-7, as Cougars showing some serve-receipt difficulties... T/O BYU... Cougars with a kill for 8-7... Boilers counter with kill of their own for 8-8 tie, but then serve into net for 9-8 BYU lead... Kill for 10-8 BYU... Purdue kill to close within 10-9... BYU tip for 11-9... Cougar block, 12-9. T/O Purdue... Boiler kill to close within 12-10, but another service error, 13-10 BYU... Cougar kill for 14-10... 14-11 (BYU fails to capitalize on free-ball opportunity)... Purdue ace closes it to 14-12. T/O BYU...  Another ace! 14-13... BYU hits long after shaky serve-receipt, 14-14... BYU kill for 15-14, Purdue answers 15-15... Cougar net violation for 16-15 Purdue, but BYU challenging. Call confirmed... BYU kill for 16-all... Purdue kill for 17-16... Purdue block to win match, 18-16... Amazing finish! Game-5 hitting: Purdue .211, BYU .100...

2021 NCAA Women's Preview

The 2021 NCAA women's volleyball tournament is underway, with a few matches having taken place last night (the seeded teams who played advancing) and the bulk of the matches on tap for late this afternoon and tonight. 

After many seasons of seeing the same teams atop the seeding, year after year, the last couple of years have seen a changing of the guard. Penn State and Stanford are in the field but unseeded, something that would have been unimaginable a few years ago. USC is not even in the field. 

Last year, Kentucky captured the NCAA title as a relative newcomer on the elite scene and this year, another team from the Bluegrass State, Louisville, is the top national seed. Given that the Cardinals went 28-0 on the season (including wins over fellow national seeds Pittsburgh, Purdue, Kentucky, Georgia Tech, and Nebraska), it would be hard to seed them anywhere else.

However, according to my Conference-Adjusted Combined Offensive-Defensive (CACOD) rating (explained here), which I introduced in 2011, Louisville comes out only as third best. The following chart lists the 16 seeded teams in order of their CACOD.

No team with a CACOD lower than 1.91 has ever won the championship, so I've inserted a dividing line to separate the likely contenders from the rest (although just because something hasn't happened before, that doesn't mean it can't happen).

The top two teams in the CACOD are BYU (28-1 with the only loss occurring at Pitt) and Texas (last year's national runner-up and owners of a 25-1 record this season, the only loss coming in a split of a two-match series at Baylor).

Another team drawing a lot of attention is Wisconsin, with its group of "super-seniors," who are playing in their fifth season as a COVID-19 allowance. This group includes 6-foot-8 middle Dana Rettke and setter Sydney Hilley. The Badgers, who went undefeated last season until falling to Texas in the national semifinals, have not been as dominant this year, losing twice to Purdue and once to Maryland, and barely escaping at Minnesota.

Belated Analysis of U.S. Olympic Gold in Women's (Indoor) Volleyball

Back in August, the U.S. took Olympic gold in women's (indoor) volleyball for the first time. It was quite a transformation for the American squad, whose sometimes shaky performance in pool play gave way to dominance in the medal round. I like to take some time to reflect on a competition, make some graphics, and then write up an analysis. Three months is a long time, but it's just been a busy year. However, I'm finally ready to present my analysis!

To illustrate how the U.S. women upgraded their performance between the pool and medal rounds, I've created the following graphic of their game-by-game point-differentials throughout the tournament, on which you can click to enlarge.

Each game of each match is shown from left to right. In its opening match against Argentina, the U.S. won in a sweep, with margins of 5, 6, and 5 points in each respective game. Hence, victorious games appear as blue bars, greater height reflecting more decisive wins. Skipping to the third match, vs. Turkey, the U.S. took the first two games, lost the third and fourth (shown as red bars, the greater the drop-down, the more decisive the loss), but rebounded for a 15-12 win in the fifth. Next came a blowout loss to the Russian Olympic Committee, and then a two games to one deficit vs. Italy, which the U.S. overcame to win in five. During one stretch, the U.S. dropped seven out of nine games, some by large margins (where all the red is).

This hardly looked like a team poised to win the gold, especially in as dominant fashion as it did! Once the medal round began, however, the U.S. recorded three straight sweeps, by an average of 7 points per game. Readers of this blog will know that the first place I always look is hitting percentage, both that amassed on offense and that allowed defensively. Here are the hitting percentages from the U.S. matches...

In its pool-play matches (Argentina, China, Turkey, ROC, and Italy), the U.S. didn't dominate anyone in hitting percentage. The only domination was by the ROC over the U.S. That all changed in the medal round. After hitting for the most part between .200 and .250 in pool play, the U.S. ranged between roughly .275 and .350 in the medal round. In addition, the Americans started holding their opponents below .200.

The Olympic scoresheets (which no longer seem to be available online) contained a lot of potentially valuable information. As shown below, I gravitated toward three statistics, which I charted...

The first row ("Non-Scoring Reception") pertains to serve-receipt, the second row ("Non-Scoring Dig") pertains to digging, and the third ("Scoring Block") pertains to blocking. Given the importance of launching an "in-system" attack, I thought quality of serve-receipt (defined as serve-receipts deemed "excellent" by some observer, divided by the sum of [opponent aces plus serve-receipts kept in play]) might be key to the U.S. team's improved hitting percentage and overall play in the medal round. But no, U.S. serve-receipt was actually worse in the medal round than in pool play.

What about digging of opponents' spike attempts (defined as "excellent" digs over total attempts)? Not much there either, other than a really good digging match vs. the Dominican Republic in the quarter-finals.

Finally, we have scoring blocks (defined as [points scored via the block - blocking errors]/total blocking attempts). Now, in each of its matches, the U.S. committed more blocking errors (primarily net violations) than it scored points directly via the block, leading to consistent negative values on this statistic. However, the statistics became less negative as the U.S. entered the medal round. It seems anticlimactic to conclude that the key to the American' historic gold medal was blocking for points and staying out of the net while trying to do so, but that is what these data seemed to suggest.

Perhaps, I thought, this was merely a fluke correlation between the blocking statistic and the U.S. team's success. I initially planned to examine the statistics of every women's volleyball match of these past Olympics (not just the U.S. matches) to see if teams with blocking statistics not far below zero tended to do well. However, as I was falling behind in writing up this analysis, I decided to examine only a subset of matches.

In doing so, I found a few instances in which a team scored a large number of points blocking, relative to their blocking errors. Italy scored 12 points directly via the block, while committing only 12 blocking errors (making their statistic .000) vs. the ROC, with Italy winning the match three games to none. Also, Turkey scored 9 points via the block while committing 12 blocking errors vs. China and, what do you know, Turkey recorded a three-game sweep. Finally, the ROC scored 13 points on blocks while committing 13 blocking errors in sweeping Argentina.

As we academics like to say, further research is required to establish the reliability of these findings. Still, there really may be something going on here.

U.S. Men (Indoor) Eliminated from 2020(21) Olympics

The U.S. men's indoor squad has missed the eight-team medal tournament, losing its final pool match to Argentina. Vinnie Lopes at Off the Block has a statistically laden summary (link).

Kentucky Wins 2020 (held in 2021) NCAA Women's Title; Hawai'i Takes 2021 Men's

It was an unusual spring for U.S. collegiate volleyball, thanks to COVID-19-related adjustments, with the women's championship (typically decided in December) and the men's championship (typically being decided five months later) being held only two weeks apart. The women's final was played on Saturday, April 24, 2021, with the men's on May 8. Having nearly three months to digest these matches, I present my analyses of the championships below.

WOMEN'S

For starters, here's a sentence I never expected to write in my lifetime (I'm 58): The Kentucky Wildcats are the new NCAA women's volleyball champions.* UK stopped Texas in four games, 20-25, 25-18, 25-23, 25-22, to claim what really is the 2020 championship (the 2021 title will be determined this coming November).

True, Kentucky was the No. 2 seed. However, previous high seeds from outside the power conferences (Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12) have rarely lived up to their placements**, so I remained skeptical. In the end, however, Kentucky proved to be a more reliable pick than even No. 1 seed Wisconsin, which entered the tournament undefeated, but bowed out in three to No. 4 Texas in the national semifinals.

Kentucky led the nation in team hitting percentage during the regular season (.361) and, to a large extent, rode that hitting to the national championship. Wisconsin came out better than Kentucky on my Conference-Adjusted Combined Offensive-Defensive (CACOD) measure, which is based on each team's own regular-season hitting percentage (HP) divided by the aggregate hitting percentage a team allowed its opponents (with this ratio multiplied by a strength-of-conference adjustment factor). Wisconsin hit .342 in the regular season (a bit below Kentucky's .361), but the Badgers allowed their opponents to hit a combined .128 (compared to .144 for the Wildcats' opponents). The Big 10's higher conference strength (1.25) than the SEC's (1.00) also made Wisconsin look better:

Wisconsin: .342 own HP/.128 opponents' HP = 2.67, which when multiplied by the Big 10's 1.25 conference adjustment factor = 3.34. 

Kentucky: .361 own HP/.144 opponents' HP = 2.51, which when multiplied by the SEC's 1.00 conference adjustment factor = 2.51.

At no time was Kentucky's kill-production more effective than when the Wildcats had the opportunity to close out the championship match against Texas in Game 4. Looking at a portion of the Game-4 play-by-play, once the Wildcats had overcome the Longhorns' early 6-1 edge to take a 15-13 lead, Kentucky successfully kept Texas at arm's length. A trailing team cannot afford merely to trade side-outs, but must put together scoring runs on its own serve to catch up. Yet, as shown in the following screenshots, five of Texas's seven final serving stints consisted of one serve only (the other two consisting of two serves). And, nearly always, it was Kentucky kills (highlighted in yellow) that kept Texas from gaining any ground. (You can click on all graphics to enlarge them.)

Another way to examine Kentucky's hitting attack is through usage/success graphs. In the two graphs shown below (the top one for the championship match vs. Texas and the bottom one for the Wildcats' four-game semifinal victory over Washington), each of Kentucky's five most active hitters (Madi Skinner, Avery Skinner, Elise Goetzinger, Azhani Tealer, and Alli Stumler) is depicted by a rectangle. The width of each rectangle represents the percentage of the team's hitting attempts taken by a player. For example, against Texas, Stumler took 34% (.34) of Kentucky's total number of swings (51/152), the most of any Wildcat, so her rectangle is widest. The height of each rectangle denotes the player's hitting percentage in the match, which was .471 for Stumler in the title match. Rectangles with the largest area convey great productivity by the hitter: a large number of kills on a large number of hitting attempts.

Looking at Kentucky's graphs against Texas and Washington one atop the other allows us to discern at a glance any changes in the Wildcats' allocation strategy between the two matches. For example, Kentucky set Stumler considerably more often (34% of the team's hitting attempts) in the final match than in the semifinal (23%). Changes in players' hitting percentages, such as Madi Skinner's improvement from .360 in the semifinal to .455 in the final, are also evident.

Before leaving the women's tournament, I wanted to revisit Wisconsin's concluding matches. Due to COVID, Big 10 teams played only conference matches during the regular season. The Badgers went 15-0 in this perennially strong conference, sweeping every match with the exception of three that went 3-1 (vs. Illinois, Michigan State, and Minnesota). However, both matches with Nebraska (ranked No. 5 nationally at the time), both matches with Penn State (No. 9 at the time), and one match with Minnesota (No. 5 at the time) were cancelled. It seems, in retrospect at least, that the missed opportunity to play these matches likely cost Wisconsin in terms of tournament sharpness.

The Badgers breezed through their first two NCAA tourney matches against Weber State and BYU, before hanging on 15-12 in the fifth game vs. No. 8-seed Florida in the round of eight.*** Now, Florida is an excellent team, in fact the only team all year to beat Kentucky (the Gators and Wildcats split their two SEC matches). Still, the decline in hitting percentage vs. Florida (relative to Big 10 play) among three leading Wisconsin hitters (6-foot-8 middle Dana Rettke, 6-2 middle/right Devyn Robinson, and 6-4 middle Danielle Hart) was considerable.

Interestingly, Robinson and Hart recovered nicely in their hitting vs. Texas, but it was not enough. As a team, the Longhorns outhit the Badgers, .301-.220.

MEN'S

Due to the COVID-related cancellation of the 2020 NCAA men's season, 2019 runner-up Hawai'i had to wait two years for another shot at the title. This time, the Rainbow Warriors made good on the opportunity, sweeping BYU, 25-21, 25-19, 25-16.

As this match wore on, Hawai'i looked more and more like it could attack the ball unchallenged. BYU recorded a healthy 5.5 blocks in Game 1 (really 5, as the extra half-block comes from awarding .5 credit to three blockers who went up together). However, the Cougars had zero blocks in Game 2 and two in Game 3 (7.5 total). Hawai'i hit .381 for the match (.400, .333, and .400, respectively, in Games 1, 2, and 3). Also, the Rainbow Warriors had only nine hitting errors on the night; we know seven of these are from BYU's "7.5" blocks, so that means UH spiked only two balls out of bounds. 

The Bows' Rado Parapunov, who started off hot in the 2019 final before cooling off, hit .357 this time vs. BYU on 13 kills (with three errors) on 28 swings (one-third of Hawai's overall 84 spike attempts). Several of Parapunov's teammates had even higher hitting percentages, albeit in far fewer attempts (Patrick Gasman, .545, 7-1-11; and Chaz Galloway and Guilherme Voss, each .667, 6-0-9).

Before I go, I wanted to mention that the Hawai'i athletic website's box score from this match is a very elaborate one, containing far more than the usual statistics. As shown in the following screenshot, the extended box score breaks down hitting attempts into first-ball attacks (immediately upon serve-receipt), transition attacks (once a rally has started), and first transition attacks. Hawai'i hit better on first-ball attacks (.524) than it did on transition attacks (.238).

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*Any more than I expected to write about a post-1908 World Series win by the Chicago Cubs or an NBA title by the Toronto Raptors (2019) or Milwaukee Bucks (2021).

**Examples include the 2019 Pitt squad that was seeded No. 6 and lost in the second round, and Kentucky itself, which as the No. 4 seed in 2017, lost in the Elite Eight to Nebraska.

***In the usual 64-team field, a team must win four matches to reach the Final Four. However, due to COVID, this spring's NCAA tourney consisted of only 48 teams.

2020 (held in 2021) NCAA Women's Tourney Reaches Round of 16

The NCAA women's tourney is now down to 16 teams, who will play on Sunday (except for Wisconsin vs. BYU on Saturday). Fourteen of the 16 national seeds have advanced this far. The two exceptions are Western Kentucky, which upset No. 15-seed Washington State in five games and will now face No. 2-seed Kentucky; and Pitt, which swept No. 14-seed Utah and will now take on No. 3-seed Minnesota.

In my tournament preview (previous posting below), I identified Western Kentucky as a leading upset candidate, based on the Hilltoppers' ratio of nearly 3 (2.91) between their own season-long offensive hitting percentage (.355) to the hitting percentage they defensively allowed their opponents (.122). (WKU's conference-difficulty adjustment in Conference USA was 1.00, so the Hilltoppers' ratio statistics is not changed by multiplying by 1.00.) 

 Another team on my radar was High Point, whose ratio was an even more gaudy 3.29 (=.296/.090). Multiplying by the Big South adjustment factor of .75 yields an adjusted ratio of 2.47 for the Panthers. High Point scored a first-round win over Central Florida, but was then swept by No. 7-seed Purdue in the second round.

I just checked Pitt's regular-season statistics for own and opponents' hitting percentages. They were  .262 and .146, respectively. Dividing .262/.146 = 1.79 and multiplying by 1.10 for the ACC conference adjustment, yields an adjusted ratio of 1.97.