There’s a forum thread at Volley Talk on the subject of the influence of blocking on results. A blog post (no longer available) which suggests blocking may not be that important motivated it. Specifically, blocking is said to be the facet of the game least correlated to wins and losses (my own research suggests it’s second least). The post offers the 2012 University of Oregon women’s team as a prime example. That team played in the NCAA Division I national championship game, but actually was at or near the bottom of the PAC-12 conference in blocks per set during the regular season. Clearly, blocking isn’t all that important!
Is that convincing?
This manner of thinking reminds me of other potential misuses of data.
Blocking is not just about blocks
Of course the big issue with this discussion is that blocking isn’t just about blocks which score points. It is also about forcing hitters to change shots. It’s about funneling balls toward our best defenders. And it’s especially about slowing down hard hit balls. Unfortunately, it’s quite hard to objectively measure those sorts of things directly with standard statistics. We can only get there indirectly by looking at opponent hitting percentages and things like that.
What we can do, though, is ask the question what would happen if we don’t block at all. Once one reaches a sufficiently high level where attacking players hit hard and/or accurately enough to overwhelm the defense, it clearly becomes the case that blocking is very important. Even a weak block is generally better than no block at all from this point onward.
Blocking because that’s what you’re supposed to do
That said, below the point where offense overwhelms defense in the absence of a block, it is quite legitimate to ask whether blocking is worthwhile. We as coaches – and by extension our players – often feel like we have to do things a certain way regardless of the situation. This is another element of the discussion in Using 2-touch games to challenge your players in terms of being able to be effective vs. doing things the “right” way.
How often do you see double blocks put up against teams with no strong hitters? How many times do your own teams do it? I am certainly guilty of that. In all honesty, in part I’ve let it be at times because I see a risk in making things more confusing for the players if I tell them to only single block or to not block at all. Of course, that just means I should train them to deal with that situation.
So at what point do we want players blocking – singly or doubly (or triply)? Should we always have players block in a developmental context?
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3 Responses
I agree with what you are saying about measurement. I also feel that the block can also affect a hitter psychologically. In terms of when to use one blocker vs a double block I also agree with what you said 🙂 I did see an occasion this year where I thought the coach made some adjustments that were brilliant. I live in Canada and watched our university women play at our Nationals. In a semi final match it was a bit of David vs. Goliath (also the title of Gladwell’s new book which is worth a read!). The six time national champion UBC thunderbirds vs Laval. Both great coaches, but one team UBC with more size than Laval. Early on in the match it was apparent that Laval’s only chance was to win by playing great D, serving effectively and digging a ton of balls. Well not only digging, but transitioning those balls as well. UBC not a great defensive team, especially vs tip/rolls. Anyways to make a long story short Laval on four/three passes blocked one v one everywhere and everybody else played D. They lost the match but dug a ton if balls. There were also situations where against the better/stronger UBC attackers in transition or Out of system they would send two blockers one way and go 1v1 the other. Sorry for the length and spelling errors I’m on my phone. 🙂
Very important to talk about the role and relationship between the efficiency of the block and the serve. Also talking about how reading is very important in the new volleyball.
I coached HS teams to several state championships and state runner ups using a one and two blocker defense (depending on the size of my team in a particular year).
It never made sense to me to use three blockers if my setter couldn’t reach over the net and if I didn’t have a capable right side hitter to play. We were a small school and didn’t have tryouts so my coaching staff and I had to work with what we had. Instead of having an OP, I used that spot almost like a second Libero and had a girl play six rotations in the back row for defense. My setter would always have her base in right front around the 10 ft line playing for tips. This spot would keep her close to the net so she was in great position to transition to set. If she had to play the first ball, she would dig it high to the middle of the court and then my six rotation defensive player would step in and set a tempo ball to my OH.
Most people would think it would be hard to dig teams that had big hitters but that wasn’t as much of an issue as one would think. Here’s why: 1. Our one blocker (MB) often got more blocks by herself because she could just focus on intercepting the hitter and didn’t have to worry about closing the block or coming down on someone else’s foot. 2. We were used to playing small sided games like say 3 vs 3 full court so my team already got a lot of reps digging without relying on a block. 3. Hitters would often try too hard to get a kill because either their coach was putting pressure on them telling them they should be able to score easily against one block or because since we had more defenders digging, hitters would try and swing harder since we didn’t have as many holes you could hit to.
The other factor I considered when making the decision is how good are typical HS players at blocking. For example, has a coach ever counted how many times their team gets tooled during a match? Especially vs average or quirky hitters (timing is off). It happens way more than you think.
Now don’t get me wrong, if I had a tall team, I would probably go three blockers but I have had a lot of success thinking outside of the box and doing things unconventional when needed. Food for thought.