Quick and Easy Video Clips

Quick follow-up question that a coach had after the Setting and Offense Coaches Workshop with Dani Busboom Kelly:

Quick question... how did you get volleymetrics clips into the video format that you played on VLC media player?  Being able to save montages from VM into a seamless video clip is huge.

I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to video editing, transfers, etc. but would love to learn how to do this.

Well, don’t fear, it’s really easy. Short-answer: I use a screen-capture program.

The one I use is Movavi Screen Recorder, but I can’t say it’s necessarily better or worse than other programs that might do the same thing. (Actually, if anybody from Movavi is listening, the ability to save a set window size would be super-convenient and save me 4 seconds every time I make a clip, which adds up.)

Anyways, I use a screen capture program, and just click and drag to capture the Volleymetrics window. Then I press “record” in the program, and roll the Volleymetrics clip, and then press “stop” in the capture program. I then save the clip. Then, you can get something like this:

If I’m making a montage of clips that are all from the same match, it’s pretty easy to just keep the capture program rolling and click on the different Volleymetric tags over on the right side.

Things are a little more annoying if you want to montage clips from different matches. In that case, I make a whole bunch of individual clips, then queue them all up in a media player (I use VLC, but that’s just personal preference), and use the capture program a second time to capture the running playlist of these separate clips into one clip.

Whew! A little bit of extra work! Volleymetrics, get your act together and create a montage function like DataVolley has!

Any other questions? Follow up in the comments.

How Does Player Ability Affect The Way You Coach (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this article series, we explored a follow-up question from the Jaylen Reyes Block/Defense Systems Workshop. If you want to hear the audio or see my beautiful face talk about this topic, you can check out the podcast I did on the same topic. The question was:

Based on your experience on coaching at different levels of women’s volleyball, how big of a difference in player ability are there between International vs D1 vs D2?

 I ask this because I had some good takeaways from this weekend but I am curious of what I need to take and put into the context of D2 volleyball?

The three aspects I discussed in Part 1 were:

1. Principles don’t change, but applications do.

2. Physical differences change tactics.

3. Higher skill levels open up more options.

There are two more aspects of this topic I want to discuss today.

Technique Is Similar, But Not Always Relevant.

Even some U-12 kids can learn to pancake and dive and sprawl and overhand dig in very similar ways that an Olympic player do. Even some young kids can execute blocking moves or take approaches in basically the same way that an Olympic player does. But because of the difference in power of execution, some of these moves are relatively less important.

Let’s use the example of a Crossover-2 blocking move. This is a great blocking move for high-level blockers to close against a fast in-system ball. In Jaylen’s workshop, we saw video of Nebraska players executing this move at a high level.

This move is great for high-level blockers. Most collegiate middle blockers need to have this move in their toolkit. But it’s not very relevant for a high-school middle blocker.

First of all, a 5'8" middle with average athleticism is probably never going to block a ball with a crossover-2 move, because she can't get up over the net unless she has both feet underneath her. And second of all, even if she could, it's likely that the offense she's playing against isn't fast enough to require a crossover-2 move to defend it. So while the high school middle can execute a crossover-2 move with good technique, it’s just not relevant.

For an example in the back-row: a no-step sprawl is a really nice move for high-level defenders. Here’s Nebraska executing a few:

Younger kids actually can learn to do it pretty well from a purely physical standpoint if you rep it out with them. But it's kind of irrelevant, because U-14s almost never hit hard enough to require a no-step sprawl. So moves like a step and cut or a more extended diving move to help smaller kids cover more court are more relevant.

Reading And Autonomy Is Just As Important

Seeing and reading of the game is just as important at any level. I think as coaches we have to be aware that we can't fix problems as quick as we'd like to. There's always this desire to over-coach to make up for a skill deficit. When we have a, "good," team, there's always more trust and autonomy. And when we have a, "not as good team," we always feel like... "well, that's all well and good for [this team who's better than mine] to have this autonomy and freedom to read and react and make decisions, but my players aren't that skilled."

I’ve seen this at every level. And that’s why I know it’s important at every level.

I’ve coached at the U-12 level, and had coaches say, “wow, those kids can really just go out there and do it.” Well yeah… because they’re playing against other 12 year-olds. Throw them in with the high schoolers and it looks like autonomy is failing them. It’s not autonomy that’s failing them. It’s not that they can’t be trusted to read and react to the game, it’s that they just aren’t good enough. No system can compensate for lack of fundamental skill.

One year I was coaching a U-17 club team. We were a really nice team for our area. Nationally-competitive, had some players who would go on to play scholarship-level volleyball in college, etc. We were playing in our Regional Championship, and I was coaching the way I did at any tournament, which was to say we had a read-oriented system where I trained them hard in practice to see and react and in competition they were trusted to execute those responsibilities. For our region, we were a very strong team (we would win the Region Championship that day), so things appeared to be going well.

In one match, the other team called a timeout, and I did what I usually did: I let my team huddle up for the first part of the timeout to talk while I talked to my assistant coach for a few seconds by the timeout. We were standing by the work table, and the coach who was with his work team at the table said, “I guess with a team like that, you don’t need to say much, huh?”

And the implication is something like, “When you have great players, you can give them that autonomy, but MY players aren’t that good. I actually have to coach them.” And “coach them” means “tell them what to do.”

But here’s the thing: that’s just because this coach happened to see us playing a team we were better than. Of course this read/autonomy-based system was working well! Pick a different match, like when we played a team that would eventually go on to medal at JOs, and he have the opposite feeling.

And this keeps going up the scale. That U-17 would look out of sorts against the D2 team. While the D2 coach is thinking, “Well Nebraska can give their players autonomy but my players…” And the Nebraska coach could easily start thinking, “Well the National Team can give their players autonomy, because they’re the best in the world, but I’m just dealing with inexperienced freshman here…”

And keep in mind that a few months prior, that freshman at Nebraska might have been the player that the club coaches are all looking at like, “well sure, THAT girl can be trusted to read and react to the game, but MY players…”

Jaylen knows this, and I love how he’s teaching his players at Nebraska. It’s not that you just roll the ball out there and say, “do whatever you want.” But it’s the recognition that as a coach you have to train your players to see and process the game faster. Getting them to see what you can see (and ideally… beyond that) is the way toward having a team that can play the type of defense you see Nebraska playing.

What do you think? Leave a comment, tweet or message me on Instagram (@volleycast) or send me an email: [email protected]

2018 NCAA Championship Breakdown

In the 2018 NCAA Women’s Volleyball Championship, Stanford edged out Nebraska in a close 5-set match. We saw in this post that Nebraska won their semifinal match over Illinois despite being outscored by 1 point. The margin in the final was the same, but this time Nebraska wasn’t able to pull it out.

End of match screen. GMS Stats app.

The first two sets were close, but sets 3 and 4 saw each team trading blowouts. In an eerie recall of the semifinal vs Illinois, a challenge decided a crucial point late in the 5th set, but this time it didn’t go Nebraska’s way. Stanford won the 5th and earned their 8th National Championship.

In a match this close, we expect the margins to be thin statistically, and that was the case in this match.

Stanford Point Differential Screen

Both teams were at about 59% sideout for the match, which, while lower than their season averages, is also higher than either team typically allowed. This is common- seeing the overall sideout rate in a match between two top teams end up about halfway between what those teams sided out and what they allowed against most other opponents. Let’s break down the statistics more to see if they can tell us where the slim margins of victory came from. All screens and statistics courtesy of the GMS Stats App!

When I analyze a match, the first thing I do is look at the overall Point Differential, and see the Sideout level for the match as a whole. The next thing I like to do is look at the 3 Key Factors to Sideout. We’ll look at both the Stanford and Nebraska Sideout Key Factors to see the similarities and differences.

Stanford Sideout Key Factors

Nebraska Sideout Key Factors

Plenty of similarities here. Both teams passed well. Nebraska hit significantly better In-System (attacking after a Good Pass) than Stanford, but Stanford was better Attacking Out-of-System- after a Bad/Medium Pass or in transition. So Nebraska was In-System a lot, and hit well when they were. That’s usually a recipe for success. Let’s look at the defensive side of the ball to find out a little more information.

Stanford Opponent Sideout Screen

Nebraska Opponent Sideout Screen

Again, plenty of similarities. Nebraska dug a bit better while Stanford blocked better. Blocking can be a deceiving stat because while Stanford only outblocked Nebraska 10 to 9, they did so while only giving up 22 tools/block errors, while Nebraska gave up 34. Hitters on both teams scored off the block well, but Stanford was better here. However, this was compensated by Nebraska being the better defensive team. Again, percentages come in handy. Both teams had 69 digs, but Nebraska dug those 69 balls on 100 chances, while Stanford had 119 chances to dig.

Since Nebraska hit better on the match, we see, as we often do, that backcourt defense has a bit stronger of an effect (in NCAA Women’s volleyball) than blocking on the opponent hitting efficiency.

Finally, we see the serving. Both teams knocked the opponents Out-of-System at a similar rate. All told, the Key Factor statistics were close, as you might expect when the Sideout % (and thus, overall points scored) is so close.

So what was the difference?

If we walk it back to the first image in this post, we see there were 209 total points scored this match: 105 by Stanford and 104 by Nebraska. Since Nebraska out-hit Stanford, we’d expect them to be better within the rally, and that was true. If we take away service errors and aces, and isolate only the points where a rally took place (meaning at least one of the teams got a chance to attack), we see the following:

Total Rally Points: 182

Nebraska: 94 (72 Kills, 9 Blocks, 13 Stanford Errors)

Stanford: 88 (65 Kills, 10 Blocks, 13 Nebraska Errors)

So indeed, Nebraska was 6 points better within the rally. But now let’s look back at the No-Rally Points, where there was either an ace or a missed serve:

Total No-Rally Points: 27

Nebraska No-Rally Points: 10 (2 Aces, 8 Stanford Missed Serves)

Stanford No-Rally Points: 17 (9 Aces, 8 Nebraska Missed Serves)

So Nebraska was 6 points better within the rally, but Stanford was 7 points better when no rally happened at all! We find that this happens quite a bit- the team that wins the match was no better, or even slightly worse when, “volleyball happened,” but a substantial margin in the serve-pass game can often compensate for that.

With so much attention on Stanford’s size and power at the net, and the flashy digs by libero Morgan Hentz, it’s easy to forget that the serve-pass game so often dictates the winner and loser, even (especially?) at the highest levels.

What Is Point Differential And Why Does It Matter? - Part 1

In a previous blog post we showed the Point Differential screen of the GMS Stats App.

Nebraska Point Differential Screen; 2018 National Semifinal vs Illinois

But what is Point Differential? Why does it matter? How does it affect me as a coach?

Point Differential is simply the difference between how many points I score, and how many points my opponent scores. It’s a fancy way of saying, “the score.” Most of us intuitively grasp the following two equations:

Scoring More Points Than The Other Team = “Good”

Scoring Fewer Points Than The Other Team = “Bad”

“Great, Joe, score more points than the other team. I can see why the National Team hired you.”

Calm down, unnecessarily sarcastic imaginary reader.

This screen from the app actually shows Sideout Differential, which gives us a little bit more information. This screen shows Nebraska (“your”) Sideout and Illinois (“Opponent”) Sideout. What’s the difference between Sideout Differential and Point Differential? It’s really just a matter of perspective.

Quick Volleyball Stats 101 Lesson:

A “Sideout” is any time the other team starts the rally with a serve and we win the point, whether they miss the serve, or we win on the first chance to attack, or it’s a long rally that we win in the end. If the rally started with the opponent serving, and we win the point, that’s a Sideout. (So an Opponent Sideout is any time we start the rally with the serve and the opponent wins the point.)

“Sideout %” is the number of chances we had to sideout (also: the number of times the opponent serves) divided by the number of times we actually sideout. So if the other team serves 100 times, and we sideout 54 times, our Sideout % is 54%.

So Sideout Differential is just a way of looking at Point Differential from a different perspective. You cannot have a better Sideout % than your opponent, but a worse Point Differential. And you cannot have a better Point Differential than your opponent, but a worse Sideout %. So why use Sideout Differential instead of Point Differential?

The best reason is that Sideout % is a reliable indicator of level of play. In U12 volleyball, the serving team has an overwhelming advantage. Sideout % is well under 50%. At the professional level, the receiving team now has the advantage. Both teams will Sideout well above 50% in most matches. So imagine two different matches:

Match 1: Sideout 41%, Opponent Sideout 40%

Match 2: Sideout 61%, Opponent Sideout 60%

In both these matches, the Differential was 1%, but the style was different. Match 1 was a defensive battle where both teams were going on runs. Match 2 was more of a sideout battle, with the offenses at an advantage over the defenses. Knowing the differential as well as the overall sideout rate between the two teams allows you to get an idea of the overall level of play, as well as how your team fared.

In Part 2, we look at more uses of Point or Sideout Differential and go from looking at one match to multiple matches.