Coaching Volleyball

This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for the 2017-18 season.

This was wind down month for the year. The players finished classes the first week of the month, then moved on to final exams the second week. Then it was on to Summer break!

Team Meeting

I had a team meeting on May 1st to wrap up the Spring training cycle. Mainly, it was to provide details for the Summer – when our strength coach would give them their Summer program, start of preseason, camp dates, etc. We talked about how Spring went, both from their perspective and ours as coaches. The team’s mentality on the court was excellent, and I encouraged them to use the Summer to share it with the incoming freshmen as part of connecting with them.

The Athletic Director also took some time to speak with them. I can guess about what, but I wasn’t actually in the room for it.

Little details

There’s always little bits and pieces that come up near the end of the year. An example of this is the Summer Voluntary Workout Request Form. This is for those student-athletes who will be around during the break and intend to take part in the voluntary workouts run by the strength coaches. Some of the players actually found it a bit invasive.

There was also paperwork and online training for players who were going to work our camps and/or clinics. Background check and child safety type stuff.

Our strength coach gave the players their Summer workout program on the 4th. It comprises three 4-week training cycles. I passed it along to our signed incoming freshmen.

Fundraising Clinics

Starting the second week of May we ran 90-minute evening clinics Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings. These are targeted at 3rd through 7th graders, so it means a fairly wide range of skill and experience, not to mention stature. This is the fourth year in a row that we’ve been running these clinics as a way to raise a bit of money for the program. They don’t bring in a ton of money, but it all helps.

The one annoying thing about the clinics this year is that they’ve now been folded into the institutional structure used for camps. Because it was a fundraiser, we didn’t need to do that before. Putting it under the camp structure means a bit more administrative load and some costs we didn’t have before.

New head coach

The team was informed of the new head coach late in the day on the 11th. The press release went up on the 12th.

So ends the 2017-18 school year and season for MSU Volleyball and my log for the year.

This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for the 2017-18 season.

This was the final week of our Spring training period, and the final week we were allowed to work with the players for the 2017-18 school year.

Monday

We had a 2019 recruit on campus – the third in as many weeks, and also an OH. Unfortunately, since Monday is small group day for the team because of class schedules, she couldn’t play in anything like full-sided play. Instead, she took part in the two sessions we ran. The first was with our setter and one of the middles. In it she did some attacking vs. a double block, blocking as part of a double block, and passing and hitting.

In the second group we had a little more time and more bodies. This group featured all our healthy pin hitters, plus one of our liberos. The middle from the earlier group came back as well, which gave us six. We sandwiched a back court 3s game and a narrow court regular play 3s game around a servers vs. passers exercise. That’s not quite the same as playing 6 v 6 or 5 v 5, but it covered all the major areas of play we needed to evaluate. Besides, we saw her play with her juniors team over the weekend.

Tuesday

While this wasn’t our last practice, it was the last one where we had all of our reasonably healthy bodies available all together the whole time. Our freshman who hurt her knee back during the season is finally cleared to play, though only up to about 75% effort. Our OPP who hurt her ankle a couple weeks ago was also back in limited capacity. Since that was the case, I let them decide what they wanted to do, which is always an interesting experience.

Their first choice was to do the progressive triples exercise we do sometimes as a competitive ball-handling oriented warm-up. It goes from down balls to easy jumps to full back row attacks. After that they played all four variations of the cross-court game and we finished up with a pair of 15-point 5 v 6 games.

Wednesday

We started this session with some light ball-handling work in the form of a 4-person serve-pass-target drill. In this instance the focus was on taking balls with their hands. We then progressed to a 4 v 4 back row game, with rotation so that everyone took turns setting and hitting (if they were able). From there it was on to narrow court (a bit wider than half) doubles Speedball.

The remainder of the session was 4 v 4 normal play on the same narrow court we used for the doubles. The first two games were basically RS vs OH in structure, with serve initiation. Only earned points counted (kills, blocks, aces). Both times the OH side won, so we played one more game as a tie break. Games were to 11 points.

I gave the players the option of picking which game to play for the tiebreaker. They went with the 4 v 4 game we played a few times earlier in the term where you can only score if a hitter gets a kill off a hand set. This time coaches initiated the ball to the winner of the previous rally. This game was also to 11. The faster pace, though, made it pretty tiring. I gave the players a 30 second timeout at one stage to rest a little.

Thursday

This was the final practice of the Spring, and it was all about game play. We started with Brazilian volley tennis to get warmed up, then jumped into Winners back row 4s. After that, it was a 6 v 5 game until our setter had to leave for class. Once she left we played 5 v 5, 2-up/3-back.

Strength & Conditioning

This was final testing week for the team. Monday they started with standing jump in the gym, then move on to the power clean in the weight room. On Wednesday they did approach jumps, then finished up with back squats. Friday – their last formal session – the strength coach had them play a variation on Ultimate Frisbee in the gym using a small football. It was his last time working with them as he’s a grad student and is finishing up his degree in May.

Other

The players’ involvement in the interview process for the next MSU head coach disrupted this week somewhat. It caused late starts to practice on Monday and Thursday. Further, because their meeting on Friday was in the middle of our normal practice time, I just cancelled that session. So what did we do with our time? Budgeting for August!

On Sunday we had a speaker on campus to talk to the athletes on the subject of drug and alcohol use and abuse. This was something arranged by the Athletic Director. The speaker did a very good job. The session was extremely interactive and engaging.

This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for the 2017-18 season.

This was a rather choppy week thanks to a variety of factors.

Monday

The team did their morning workout with the Strength Coach. Because of some availability issues, and me not feeling particularly well, I cancelled group sessions. This was roundly applauded by the team. 😀

Tuesday

We had another 2019 recruit on campus. Unfortunately, our practice session was a pretty poor one. Balls were dropping between players. There was a lack of readiness. Basically, the little things just didn’t get done. If we didn’t have the visitors (recruit’s mom was there too), there would have been some sharp words coming out of my mouth. As it was, though, the players recognized at the end that it wasn’t good enough. They said so in our final huddle before I even opened my mouth. So there was that bright spot.

The practice itself started with 3-player over-the-net pepper, followed by some serving. Then we did rounds of 3s Neville Pepper. First it was back row only, then we allowed front row attacking. The rest of the session was given over to 5 v 5 play. We started with 3 up/2 back playing 22 v 22 for four games, allowing for the OHs to flip between front and back row. The last game was 2 up/3 back normal play.

Wednesday

No practice on this day. The team had morning strength training, but the annual sports banquet meant no volleyball.

Every team had honorees for Best Teammate (voted by the team) and top academic marks. Our sophomore setter garnered both awards. The Student Athlete Advisory Council (SAAC) moved to introduce a new award the year, which they dubbed the Maverick of the Year. Think of it as the Newcomer of the Year. One female and one male were selected, and our sophomore transfer OPP was one of the winners.

There’s a big final award that is essentially the Student-Athlete of the Year. It takes into account academics and community service, along with athletic performance. Each team’s coaching staff nominated a member of the squad. Tuesday morning I had to record a video about our nominee, which was our senior setter. That makes two years in a row as our selection, but no joy.

Thursday

This session was abbreviated for a couple of reasons. Between that and the fact that we only had one other practice up to this point I wanted to make it a higher tempo session. We started off with something new to get them moving and to give them a new challenge. That was the 2 v 2 side switch game. It served it’s purpose well, as they were definitely sweating at the end and I saw some good thinking about how to win.

From there we moved on to doubles Speedball on about a 2/3rds width court. There were two teams to a side and we played a combined side scoring game to 25.

After a couple of minutes of serving, the next exercise was a 4 v 4 game played using dig-or-die scoring. We played two games to 8. In the first one we started each rally with coaches initiating balls across the net on an alternating basis. To up the challenge some in the second game, we changed the ball initiation. This time the winner of the prior rally received a bounced ball and had two contacts remaining.

We had time for one more game after the second dig-or-die, so we put in 5 v 5 game, 2-up/3-back. I opted for ladder scoring, so if a team reached 24 and failed to win their score reset to 19. Serves initiated play.

Friday

Back on the sand for this session. I had to change things up due to player injury and absence issues. As a result, we only ran a single group rather than the two group structure of the prior two sessions. I kept the same Neville Pepper base, but shifted to triples rather than doubles, with four players rotating on the challenge side.

Strength & Conditioning

This was the last really training week for the team in this regard. Next week they do their year-end jump and lifting tests.

Recruiting

It was the last big recruiting tournament for us on Saturday and Sunday – the Lone Star national qualifier in Dallas. The event started on Friday, but because we had team practice we didn’t leave until after that. That meant missing the first day.

Community service

Saturday was the last of our community service dates for the year. Since we coaches were off recruiting, the players were on their own.

This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for the 2017-18 season.

With our one tournament behind us, all that is left of the year is three weeks of training. This was the first of those three. Since we have no competition to prep for, my concentration is heavily on small-sided play. These give players lots of experience reading and anticipating.

Monday

I decided to skip the group training and provide a bit more recovery after Saturday’s exertions – and for those who had to coach their juniors teams on Sunday. They did, though, still have their morning strength and conditioning session.

Tuesday

I gave the players an assignment after Saturday’s tournament to watch video of at least two of the sets we played and be ready to talk about what they saw. I started by having them talk about what they thought we could do better, then shifted to what went well. Our other assistant watched all the video himself during the day, so contributed his own thoughts as someone who wasn’t there. For the most part, the team did a good job of hitting on key things. They even brought up a thing or two I didn’t pick out myself.

Here’s a really interesting thing, though. I asked them what they thought our team kill percentage was. They estimates were 50% to 60%. They were quite surprised when I told them it was only 29%. That says something about perceptions, doesn’t it?

Practice itself started with 3-player over-the-net Pepper. We followed that up with some serving, then move on to the Belly Drill.

During the talk before we got going I told the players that our big focus for our remaining Spring time was on getting better at reading and anticipating. Toward that end, our next exercise was a series of 7-point 3v6 games. A ball was initiated to the 3 side, then they played out the rally. Only blocks and kills counted for points.

We finished with a 5 v 5 game where position 6 was out of bounds.

This was a slower session without a lot of intensity. Not surprisingly, the generally feeling was that it wasn’t very good and lacked energy. My comment to the team was that sometimes you’re going to slower sessions like that. When we do, it’s beholden on them to generate their own energy and to keep the focus high.

Wednesday

We only had eight available for practice, and it worked out that one came in (from an advising meeting) just as another had to leave (for class). With this in mind, I put together a session completely based on small-sided games. This provided the players lots of contacts and read opportunities.

We started with a progressive triples game. It starts with down balls, then progresses to easy jumps, and ends with full back row attacks. Coaches alternate initiating balls over the net to start each rally. At each attack level we played a game to 8.

Up next was a pair of doubles exercises. First it was 2-touch volleyball. Since we had 4 teams, we played a round robin. After that, it was doubles Speedball. All games were half court (split lengthwise) to encourage rallies.

The last pair of games were 4 v 4. We played the first on about a 2/3rds sized court. The second one was full court, but we did not allow shots inside the 3m line. Serves initiated all the rallies.

Thursday

It was another thin bunch for practice – seven much of the time with a short period during which there was an overlap of one who came late (advising) and one who left early (class). We could have had one more, but the player the trainers held out Wednesday because of back issues did not take part for a second day. This time it was as much my call as any. I wanted to make sure she was available for sand practice on Friday, so figured it was best to hold her out one more day. Our primary trainer concurred.

Keeping the focus on reading, we started the session off with a pair of tennis games. One was just a simple short-court game, while the second was Brazilian. After doing some serving, focusing in mixing short and long balls, we did a couple different 4 v 4 games.

In the first game there was one hitter up, with three back row players. The players were not allowed to play shots in front of the 3m line. Scoring was kills only. We played a couple of games to ten, mixing the front row hitters around.

The final game featured 3-2-1 scoring. That’s where a team gets 3 points for scoring on first contact, 2 points on second contact, and 1 point for scoring on the third touch. We only counted earned points (kills, blocks, aces). Blocks and aces were both worth 2 points. Using this type of scoring both makes players think more in terms of finding different ways to score and encourages them to be more alert and ready on defense.

Friday

We were back out on the sand once more. The plan was one similar to what we did two weeks back, with two groups of five. The group assignments were randomized, except for two players who had schedule constraints. This time, though, we went with 5-minute rounds rather than 4-minute. I also cut out the overlap period of play. I’m glad I did as it was hot enough (about 85F/29C) that the heat was a factor for the players.

Saturday

In conjunction with the annual Spring football game, the MSU Athletic Training department did mass physicals for incoming freshmen athletes. Four of our 2018 recruits were able to attend to get that all done and out of the way. The others will have to come at some point over the Summer so it’s all taken care of and they are cleared before we start pre-season. Some of the incoming players are planning to do Summer II classes (starting in early July) so they can be on campus for workouts with the strength coaches. Completed physicals are mandatory before starting those sessions.

Head coach position

On Monday I noticed that the posting for the head coach vacancy was no longer on the MSU website. This was in line with the 12-day posting period the Athletic Director told me about. On Wednesday the A.D. said his plan was to announce the new head coach within about 10 days.

Recruiting

Tuesday was the start of the normal NCAA signing period for volleyball (there’s an early period in November). We sent National Letters of Intent to the two players we committed earlier this term for them to sign.

Friday we found out another setter we had on our list for 2018 opted to go somewhere else. This did not seem to be directly linked to the lack of a head coach, but could have been indirectly related.

This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for the 2017-18 season.

This was arguably the central week of the MSU Spring season.

Monday

Because we were playing on Saturday, and NCAA require two days off per week, we did not do the normal small group sessions this day. The day off also applied to team weight training in the morning, so the players were free to lift on their own.

Tuesday

The focus for this week was getting ready to play on Saturday. As such, we started with a heavy team oriented session. We warmed up with 3 and 4 person over-the-net pepper, and then seam serving. That was followed by Winners back row 4s with fixed setters.

Next up was an unscored 5 v 5 exercise. Both sides had three front row attackers. In the back row, though, one had a setter and an outside hitter (OH) playing defense while the other had two liberos. We alternated initiating three down balls to each side. For the team with the setter, they had to set one to the OH, one to the middle hitter (MB), and one to the right side (RS). They could set wherever they wanted once into the rally, but the initial ball had to follow this requirement. Since the other team had no setter, they just did high balls to the hitters – with some 2s to the MB. After 9 balls to each side, we swapped hitters around.

About the last hour of practice was a series of 5 v 6 games. They were mainly serve initiated, but with a second ball twist. After the serve rally finished I initiated a down ball to the receiving team. We wanted to get some extra work in on defending against RS attacks, so the first attack off the second ball had to come from the right. After that, though, the set could go anywhere. Each team served three straight balls, then we rotated the team of 6. When we got through three rotations we swapped players around.

Not surprisingly, it was a bit rough at times technically after four days off. There was some interesting problem-solving during the 5 v 5 exercise, though.

Wednesday

Our senior MB was available to practice with us, so I made 6 v 6 play a central part of the practice plan – literally and figuratively. Our sophomore RS was to arrive about 30 minutes late due to class, while one of our freshmen MBs had to leave about 40 minutes early. So we had something like a 35 minute window in which we could play 6 on 6.

I used the first part of practice, before the RS arrived, as a serving and passing progression. We started with a partner serving warm-up. That then progressed to 5-player Serve, Pass, Set drill. We finished with a servers vs. passers game. By that point, the RS had arrived, so we could move on to game play.

Unfortunately, we perhaps only got about halfway through the time available for 6 v 6 action. At that point, the same RS injured her ankle on a play at the net. We had to finish up with a 6 v 5 exercise.

The last part of the session was a MB/RS vs. MB/OH set of 5 v 5 games.

Thursday

This was a shorter, lower intensity session after a pretty intense one Wednesday, and ahead of a strong play-oriented session on Friday. Two players were late arrivals for academic reasons. So while we waited for them to join us the seven available did some over-the-net pepper, serving, and a variation of Speedball that had four players on one side (two teams of two) and three on the other (they rotated).

Once the two latecomers arrived we jumped into a serve-pass-to-attack exercise. This was basically just a lower intensity way for us to work on serve receive offense ahead of Saturday’s play.

Unfortunately, the last part of practice had to be given over to team punishment. There was an infraction of Athletic Training Room rules – a very serious one.

Friday

We had the first of our 2019 recruiting prospects on campus – an OH. Between that and getting things ready ahead of Saturday, it kept things busy.

I had to split our last practice before the tournament to both prepare the team and to evaluate the recruit. We again had our senior MB with us. I didn’t want to go too hard knowing what was coming on Saturday, so it wasn’t as intense a session as it could have been.

We started with Brazilian volley tennis for some fun and competition. Next up was some serving. After warming up their arms I had them simply work on being aggressive with their go-to serves. No specific targets this time.

We then did some pass-to-attack out of serve reception. This was to give the hitters some reps generally, but also to let the recruit get a sense of the set tempo. That was followed by back court 3s Speedball.

The last hour was given over to basic play. I had them do 15-point games. We fit in four of them, using different player combinations on the “starting” side, which just means the side with our setter. I told them to do slow (rather than quick) ball collections in between games and let the water breaks linger longer than usual to not over work them.

Unfortunately, Men’s Basketball also had a recruit on campus and needed to use the main gym after us. That meant we couldn’t set up the courts for Saturday after we finished practice. I got some basketball help do it after they were done, though.

Saturday – Spring Tournament

We hosted a 5-team Spring tournament. It was supposed to be a 6-team event, but we heard early in the week that one of the teams couldn’t come because they were down to only 5 players due to injury. That meant a complete format change. We shifted from each team playing three 50-minute timed matches to everyone playing four 45-minute matches with a 25 minute break in the middle. Because we only had one MB available, I scheduled our matches with breaks in between.

We played all or part of 9 sets and only lost one of the partials. The two full sets we won over our conference rivals, Cameron, at the end of the day were quite satisfying. I didn’t do a lot of actual coaching of the team over the course of the day. I did, though, talk with players on the bench about different parts of their play. Mainly, I just stood back and watched them work together to problem solve. It was good to see a lot of the stuff we’ve been talking about and working on put into action.

Long, busy day for me. I had to run things solo for the day as our other assistant coach was off coaching his Juniors team at a big tournament.

This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for the 2017-18 season.

Spring Break has passed and it’s time to get back to work!

This is the non-traditional part of the NCAA season. In Division II we’re allowed a 45-day period during which we can do 15 hours per week of athletically-related activity. That’s 5 hours less than what we’re allowed during the regular season. We also have to give the players at least two days off per week, compared to one day off in the Fall. As in the main season, we have to stop no less than one week before finals begin, which means late April.

Monday

This remains a small groups day because of class schedules. We have one middle come in with the setter for about an hour, then the other middle and one of the liberos working with the setter for a second hour. Lots of blocking and working on shoot (31s) and slide footwork/timing/setting, with a bit of defense mixed in for the setter and libero.

The third group was all the pin hitters. They started off with a 3 v 3 serving and passing game. From there we progressed to narrow court doubles Neville Pepper. Then it was two versions of a 3 v 3 game where only kills counted for points (winner of the rally receives serve). First it was back row only, then we allowed hitting on the net. So they got a lot of everything. In the future we might make this a more technical session, but this allowed them to get back into things after the break.

Tuesday

The first full team session of the Spring season was a mixture of elements. We started with Brazilian volleytennis as a warm-up. We then shifted to serving, first to warm-up, then focused on targets. The third segment was a serve-pass-attack exercise.

The rest of the session was all game play. We did a 3s version of Neville Pepper on a narrow court. It was only OK with 10 players. The tempo didn’t feel right to me. I probably won’t use it again in that fashion – at least as our team comprises right now.

A series of 5 v 6 games took up most of the last hour. The scoring was earned points only (kills, aces, blocks), so we just went to 10. The rally winner served the next ball, giving them the first chance to score. After the first game I flipped the right sides, then I flipped the outsides after the second. The setters were back row the whole time, along with the liberos. Had we played another game I was going to move the setters to front row so I could get at least one of the pins playing back row.

After practice we had a team meeting to go over a few administrative things and to talk about the big focal points for the next several weeks. That’s basically getting better on offense.

Wednesday

This was a challenging session because some players had to arrive late and/or leave early due to classes. Also, I had to run things myself and we had two courts going. We used both throughout at least the first half of the session. It started with 2 v 2 pepper where on one side the players had to hit straight balls on 3rd contact while on the other side they had to hit cross. From there we did some serving, then moved on to a position focus. The pins and liberos did serve and pass while the middles and setter worked on their timing.

After that they were all on one court for some game play. At first it was an unscored middle/left vs middle right 5 v 5 game. We couldn’t go as long as I’d have liked as one of our two middles had to leave. We finished with a pair of cross-court 4 v 4 games. Scoring was earned points only. Balls hit off the block, but into the out-of-bounds part of the court were a wash. The players served to start each rally.

Thursday

We started this day’s session with 3-person and 4-person over-the-net pepper. From there we moved on to serving, with work on serving deep line and short cross. That progressed into a variation of serving and passing quads where we had the passing target set to an outside target. That means everyone got some hand setting in.

Next up was serve-pass-attack as a prelude to playing 5 v 6. The other day we did that with the setters in the back row. This time the setters were front row, and I had the outsides and rights switching around between playing defense in the back row and hitting through 4.

The setter had to go to class, so we finished up with some out-of-system work. We played two games focused on attacking the corners.The first one was back row only swings, with one player up to set/block, and three in the back row. The second game it was two up and two back. The scoring for both was 1 point for any attack to a corner, as long as it was in the court. If one of those swings resulted in a kill, a second point was awarded. Anything else did not count. I think next time I play something like this we’ll do -1 for a hit in the net.

The intensity took a clear dip during the last phase. It was a challenging exercise and the frustration level was higher than usual. As a result, the players turned more inward. It’s something I talked with them about afterwards.

Friday

This was our first sand session of the year – one of four we’re likely to do, depending on weather. This isn’t as much as we did last year went we hit the sand twice a week. That’s a function of scheduling considerations, primarily.

These sand days are all about competition. I split the team into two groups of 5, they each were at the court for 2 hours with one of those hours overlapping. When each group was on it’s own we set them up to play a series of 10 rounds of a doubles version of Neville Pepper. That allowed each player to partner with all the others. The three that were not the pair on the “winners” side rotated around, since we couldn’t do multiple teams. The plan is to mix the groups up each time out, keeping score throughout to see which player finishes with the most points on the “winners” side.

For the overlapping period, we mostly did a 3-player version of the same thing, though for the last 10 minutes our so we did Speedball 2s.. This was necessarily slower, with all the extra players, but two hours at the doubles pace would have been too much. As it was, the second wave players were clearly fatigued toward the end of their hour. Though, a couple of them are not currently at optimal fitness levels.

Strength & Conditioning

The team continued to do their Monday/Wednesday/Friday morning work with our strength coach. He pared back the load, though, to accommodate the increased court time. Mainly, that meant less sprint work and more agility type stuff when he had them in the gym.

Recruiting

I attended the North Texas Region’s 18s national bid tournament. Primarily, that was to see our early signees in action, as I haven’t had much chance so far. In particular, I wanted to see our incoming outside hitter, as I haven’t seen her play since last club season. There were also a few 2019 kids playing on 18s teams that I had a look at, along with one of the 2018 setters we’ve had visit.

Community service

As we’ve done monthly through this term, the team did two hours of tutoring help with local disadvantaged kids on Saturday. Well, those who were available, as several had coaching duties. I did not attend because I was doing another thing (see below). Apparently, there was some grumbling, though, about how strict the guy running the tutoring program was. Our other assistant, however, didn’t think he was over the top – just holding his usual line of discipline (which is very high).

Other

On Saturday I got to help man a table during a big Admissions open house on campus. They provided lunch for the attendees in our coliseum and various groups and departments had booths/tables set up. Athletics was one of them. Myself and a couple of others hung out answering what questions we could questions. Mostly, it was the more junior assistant coaches, though the head football coach did stop by for a while after his team finished with practice.