Posted by For the record, up front, to remove any doubt, I believe in scouting. I am absolutely convinced of its importance and effectiveness. Most of my greatest coaching memories are some version of ‘…and then I figured out how to beat them, and that was why we won’. But…
Rotational analysis and distribution kind of makes no sense. We tell our setter that he should watch the blockers on the other side of the net and then set accordingly. But at the same time we tell our blockers that the setter on the other side sets according to the players at his disposal.
Attack tendencies are real, kind of. We tell our spikers to hit away from the block. But we tell our blockers that the spiker on the other side will hit into their hands if we block in a certain position.
It is possible that those things are but a small part of what setters and spikers do, and how they make their decisions. Just because we’ve always done things one way, doesn’t mean we have to continue to do them like that.
At Home On The Court 