Volleyball question

Yeah, It's a shame, cause tennis is a fun sport to watch.

 

A local girl just round here just started playing varsity tennis; she's top USTA player in the state and I think top 10 in NE ... the girl who was going to win the state title from another school player her and got trounced in straight sets - the argument at our shop right now is if she played soccer in the fall, then went for the boys team, could she be the No. 1 ...

 

We had a discussion a couple of years ago regarding a girls soccer player. She was, without a doubt, the best player in our area. But she was doing a bunch of national U18 stuff and played less than half of her high school team's matches. Should she be on the the all-area team, or player of the year, when she played so few matches? Actually, I don't remember what we did.

 

If you're picking a team of players who played on teams in your circulation area in that season, would you want her on the team?

 

Well, there is valid arguments on both sides. She was by far the best player. She did play some of the matches. Everybody in the sport knew she was the best player. How silly would the all-area team look if she wasn't on it?
But she missed a bunch of matches and others were there the whole season.
What would you do if the absences were because of injury or family problems that forced a player to miss? Yet, that player excelled when playing.
I don't think there is a right or wrong answer.

 

how darn valuable to her team was she if those on it couldn't rely upon her?

that might be the most important question.

 

Assists is not a meaningless statistic, but you do have to know how to use it. The same with attack percentage and kill percentage. These are statistics you may not know how to interpret properly unless you know the sport very well. If that is the case, just avoid them.

I hate relying on statistics from the coach, unless it is somebody I know well and trust. Most of the time, you are going to have issues with them padding their players' numbers or giving you bullshit statistics like service points.

Somebody else mentioned it already, but service points is the most useless commonly-kept statistic you will find in volleyball. It is just lazy scorekeeping.

I always keep kills, blocks and aces for myself, though I've covered a lot of volleyball so I'm used to keeping up with all that.

 

I watched a great collegiate match last night between Baylor and Oklahoma. It went five sets with Baylor winning 3-2.

Set four wound up 28-26 Oklahoma. The final set finished 15-13 Baylor.

Here's a link to the game story.

http://www.wacotrib.com/sports/content/sports/college/2008/09/25/09252008wacvolley.html

 

In high school, service points are pretty pointless. At higher levels, it means more. If someone is a good server, they might not get an ace, but they might make it difficult for the other team to return an aggressive shot and set up their own team. It's kind of the concept that in tennis, you should win your service games. It really only applies to high levels where the play is good enough to take advantage of having the serve. It's a stat for coaches more than anyone else.

 

The readers don't understand those stats. Explaining them would ruin your story.
Service runs are only important in terms of the particular rotation you're in. If a player serves 6 or 8 consecutive points, unless they are mostly aces, it's because the team is in its best rotation with the best outsider hitter in the front, best blocker in the middle.

 

True, or it is because the other team is caught in a less-favorable rotation.

 

That too.