The importance of different skills in volleyball

There’s an older academic paper worth having a look at titled Skill Importance in Women’s Volleyball. Based on analysis of data from the 2006 BYU Women’s team, it looks at most of volleyball’s primary skills. I got hold of it as part of the discussion surrounding the It’s best to set the ball tight post. It also came up in the discussion of defense around the What’s the objective of defense in volleyball? post. This analysis is apparently the basis for the Gold Medal Squared favoring sets off the net, and passes as well.

Be warned, the paper is academic, so it’s quite technical in many ways. One of the more interesting aspects of it is the list of references. It includes several evaluations of skills from different competitions.

It is important to understand that academic analysis of this nature can be quite reliant on the involved methodologies, however. Further, how the researcher collects and prepares the data is important. I should know. After all, I worked on just that sort of thing for my PhD. Also, this study includes only one team in one season. As such, it may be picking up things which are specific to that squad (idiosyncratic).

Short-coming aside, it is always good to understand the parts of the game which are the most important in your team’s success. That’s part of what motivated studies like this one and this one.

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John Forman

John is currently the Strategic Manager for Talent (oversees the national teams) and Indoor Performance Director for Volleyball England. His 20+ years of volleyball coaching experience includes all three NCAA divisions, plus Junior College, in the US; university and club teams in the UK; professional coaching in Sweden; and both coaching and club management at the Juniors level. He's also been a visiting coach at national team, professional club, and juniors programs in several countries.

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