PlusLiga Statistical Review 2018-19 – Attack Type

In the course of my job, I have to study some stuff about volleyball.  A lot of the stuff is analytical in nature, or at least statistical.  Because I am doing it anyway, I often post the results here in the name of education.  For example a comparison of Europe’s Top 5 Leagues, and some best player and team analysis for 2018 VNL and 2019 VNL.

I am studying the 2018-19 Polish Plus Liga.  The data set contains 186 matches which includes every match (except one :() from the normal round, all cup matches between Plus Liga teams and all playoff matches where medals were at stake (ie not including position playoffs after 3rd).  As always the data are generated by Ben Raymond’s incredible apps.

The following looks at the the breakdown between particular sets among outside hitters and opposites.  For middle blockers the breakdown is too difficult as judging exactly what the setter and spiker intended in each situation with great certainty so it is not included.  In this post, I have also included the ‘Rally Win Rate’ as the very best measure of attacking success.

OUTSIDE HITTERS

In the previous post, I ranked outside hitters as a group. In this post, I break it down by set type.  Outside hitters have four main attacks: fast ball in position 4, high ball in position 4, fast ball in position 2, pipe.  There are some other options but they don’t occur often enough to be able to compare reasonably.  Not all outside hitters attack from position 2, so we don’t expect to see everyone represented there.  It is however, pretty clear that Sam Deroo was the best overall attacking outside hitter in Plus Liga in 2018-19.  Of added interest is that while he is not in the top five for high ball attacking percentage, he is first in ‘Rally Win Rate’.  Numbers in red, indicate those below the average for set type.

OPPOSITES

In the previous post, I ranked opposites as a group. In this post, I break it down by set type.  Outside hitters have five main attacks: fast ball in position 2, high ball in position 2, fast ball in position 1, high ball in position 1, fast ball in position 4. What is interesting to note is that almost none of the opposites appears on all lists. The obvious exception is Bartosz Kurek, which is not especially surprising.  Lukasz Kaczmarek is also well represented in each set type.  If you get into the details of the table, it is also interesting to note there are some quite big differences between between kill percentage and ‘Rally Win Rate’.

Tagged Volleyball Analytics, 2018-19 Plus Liga, Plus Liga, Science Untangled

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