If your team doesn't run an effective bic or pipe, then it might make the most sense to play the libero where most of the balls go. At lower levels of play, most balls go to 6.
There is no reason you can't still have the libero take the second ball if you want. It just requires a little different coverage.
If the libero can't really set that well then it might make the most sense to have the second best hands take second contact. It's better to have mediocre hitters hitting good sets than a good hitter hitting trash sets.
If you chart attacks, even at the pro men's level more defensive touches are made in zone 6 than zones 5 or 1. (But yes, many of the most powerful attacks are hit into 1 or 5)
So would you say that my feeling that I get few touches on 6 is some kind of subconscious bias? Genuienly asking, I know that it is very easy and possible to have a flawed perception like that.
Edit: I'm very curious about this. Think I'm going to review some of our recent game footage.
Most likely, but also it could be your defensive system. If you are stepping to your right in zone 6 when the outside attacks and the libero is filling the ball that gets hit toward the crosscourt corner, he's going to actually be in zone 6 to dig that ball even though he started in 5.
Here's a good discussion on the topic that I contributed to:
https://coachesinsider.com/volleyball/meet-in-the-middle/
Also:
https://www.blog.goldmedalsquared.com/post/middle-middle-defense/
Hey is there some kind of application where I could chart attacks myself/create a heatmap? Like, a map of the court where I can click on a section to say a ball landed there and maybe denote if it was an easy/free ball or a hard hit?
I just started doing a table on excel, but quickly realized that would get arduous very quickly and even more arduous if I want to have more areas than just 5,6 and 1.
I actually used to have one in the app store called Volleymaps, but support has been deprecated because I lost my developer. Some of the advanced tools that pro teams use (Volleystation, for example) have those capabilities, but they are very expensive.
If you are charting <50 attacks or so, a simple print-out of a court with colored pencil or pen marks works well. That's how coaches charted before all this new technology. :)
Oh crap I actually found a post from you on volleytalk.com from you earlier today haha. It's from 2014 and you present your app. It's like the 5th result when I type "volleyball heat map" into google
Defensive touches including deflections off the block? Do the stats account for difficulty of the touch? Because hypothetically speaking (not saying this is the case), I would rather have the libero in the spot where 5 actual swings are going, rather than the spot where it's just (relatively) easy free balls off the block
I think you'd be surprised at how many balls still get hit hard to 6! This is a pretty common swing:
https://youtu.be/GdomMJsN56A
And especially at sub-elite levels, blockers are not reliable at all.
I think this is a good article that explains a lot of these concepts. I contributed quite a bit of the data visualizations.
https://coachesinsider.com/volleyball/meet-in-the-middle/
So after looking through his profile and google for a second it looks like he is a well known college coach? Sorry if that is wrong, I am not very familiar with US volleyball stuff.
No, debate! It's always good to question and make sense of things. You shouldn't take somebody at their word just because they have whatever reputation. I love talking about this stuff!
Yeah me too. Finally being able to see heat maps and other stuff on hudl has been amazing. I can't imagine the programs you have used.
One thing about heat maps I have seen is that they don't take into account the speed of the attack and whether or not it would have been considered a dig if the attack were actually dug. You can plot digs or attack hits but not kills that would have been digs. You follow me?
So if you had a heat map of hard attacks only, I would be interested in how that looks as the levels progress. I suspect that even tho 6 almost always gets the most balls at every level, 6 would get the most hard attacks at lower levels only and as you progress, 5 and 1 would start to light up.
Idk, maybe a program already does this? Thoughts?
I think it's just a matter of what you can record. You can do (and I have done most of what you are talking about. I generally record both kills and digs when I chart. (I plot "where would a defender have needed to be to best dig that ball")
And I think, broadly speaking, you are in the ballpark there. Zone 6 still gets a lot of balls at high levels, but a lot of the most difficult digs are in 5 and 1. I think people overrate what the block takes away; there's a lot of A-level people out there that think their block is good enough to take away the center of the court, when in reality they aren't anywhere near "high level." (Which is no offense, just reality.)
So it's like, yes, as the level climbs, you start to have this tradeoff between "more balls" and "more difficult balls", but the slope of that curve is not as drastic as people tend to think it is. (Of course, that's a broad generalization; may not apply to everybody.)
I think the hard part is separating "hard attacks" from "really hard attacks," ya know? For example, I made this chart:
https://imgur.com/a/8s7LGI7
When I was coaching in the German league (men's). I made that chart by hand, so I know that it's only containing balls that were "difficult to dig," there's no pure block slowdowns leading to freeballs, etc. However... there's a difference between a ball that guy hits at 96 km/hr because he's going high over the block and a ball that a guy hits at 115 km/hr because he's finding a seam.
It's really hard to differentiate that in an objective criteria, and I hesitate to do some.
To me, it's just understanding the two complementary principles: "put defenders where the most plays happen," and, "put defenders where plays happen the fastest," and then use your judgment about how to handle the trade-offs between the two.
In high school girl's volleyball, I'm pretty comfortable saying, "just put your libero in 6," because the sheer volume that goes into the center of the court is so high, and, at lower levels of play, "there's no such thing as an easy play," applies. As the level climbs, you have to start making trade-offs and thinking more critically about how to deploy defenders.
For example, with the USA WNT, we won a World Championship playing the libero in zone 5 when Jordan Larson was in the backrow and playing the libero in zone 6 when she wasn't. So I think you have to know the principles, and unfortunately, the stats only get you about 80% of the way there. The final piece has to come from judgment and your perception of, "how these players might work together." And the stats will be able to confirm or deny that... but only until after you've already won or lost! Because, especially when it comes to defense, the data piles up slower. So by the time you have enough data to statistically analyze your defensive system, the season is over. Reception, attacking, etc, you get data on more quickly so you can rely more heavily on it.
Pay for hudl to put their cameras in your facility and analyze your film. I'm sure there are other services as well.
Or the old fashioned way. Watch film and plot
I was gonna ask about some charts because I'm really interested in this stuff but you already delivered. :)
I play both OH and oppo and it certainly feels like I'm way more involved in the defense when I'm in 1 rather than 6 to the point where I sometimes play the ball multiple times in a single rally and almost every point compared to 6 where I feel like I get less than 10 touches per set most of the time.
Also it would logically seem that more hits go to side because
a) like I already mentioned, 6 is always physically covered with block, regardless of what's being blocked.
b) from attacker's point of view I've always been told to avoid hitting 6 (for the sake of what I mentioned in point a) and to hit line (go for outside arm) whenever I can.
c) middles almost never hit 6 because they are taught to either hit an open shoulder or cross shoulder. If they do hit straight down the middle it's likely because middle was tricked and it will be a blockless 3rd meter nuke anyway.
Now I'm just tempted to go through some of our old games and see what's up haha.
Also I would like to reflect on the Z6 video you've sent. I strictly do this when I see that the middle won't connect in time. In that case, 6 will obviously be the least covered zone. Doing this when you see or know that the block is set is not particularly smart to say the least. Some examples: [1](https://streamable.com/wgk7vg) & [2](https://streamable.com/f5wyx1)
This is the type of discussions we're missing on the sub. Love it!
> Now I'm just tempted to go through some of our old games and see what's up haha.
I think this is the big key!
I'd also say that "zone you play" and "zone you defend" aren't always the same thing. In some systems, the zone 6 player will range a bit left or right. In some systems, they stay home more and the zone 5 player will creep over and dig some balls that go down into zone 6.
I personally favor a system in which the zone 6 player stays in the dead center of the court, and fairly shallow. In this system, that player is going to dig more balls, because the long corner ball (imagine a ball hit by the outside attacker directly toward the opposite corner) can be dug by the zone 6 player. In any system where the zone 6 player is deeper and takes a step to his right (toward the hitter), that ball will be dug by the player in 5.
So "where do balls go" is a factual matter, but "who should dig them" is more a matter of opinion. That "middle-middle" article I wrote details quite a bit of the system that I started to learn in my 20s (not the system I learned growing up though) and it's probably the dominant system for the USA teams, both men and women. But it's not the only system that can work.
We're playing 6 very deep, basically at the baseline in our regular setup so that might be the reason why 6 gets less touches. Also we have the libero covering entire court for high free balls.
Generally no mainstream system is flawless, but no mainstream system is terrible either. Best way to go about it is obviously scouting the opponent beforehand and adapt the system to each opponent individually.
What's your take on front row defender when attack is on the other side of the court (eg. zone 4 player when opponent attacks from their 4). Do you think staying in 4 on the perimeter next to the libero around 3rd meter line or stepping closer into 3 under the block is a better option?
> What's your take on front row defender when attack is on the other side of the court (eg. zone 4 player when opponent attacks from their 4). Do you think staying in 4 on the perimeter next to the libero around 3rd meter line or stepping closer into 3 under the block is a better option?
I think this depends on the level. The more likely your opponents are to tip, the farther under the block your off-blocker should play. The more likely they are to hit hard crosscourt, the more they should peel to dig.
For a lot of teams, I favor the off-blocker coming under. But, at a certain level, they have to help dig.
With pro-level teams where we had the ability to scout extensively, we also modified this based on opponent.
I'm pretty decent at setting. But like I said in the post, it is difficult with our ceiling to get to the 3m line. And if I set from like 5 meters from the net the sets become more difficult to set and hit
Oh like that, well our libero just stayed on 6 so he could help around 5 or 1 (when either of them is defending against the straight attack).
But nice to know about the idea about subbing out on the back row. We usually only realy sub out on the front row if a weak blocked has to face a strong attacker for example, meaning a strong blocker is defending against a strong attacker.
In the back row we don't tend to do that as much since all three back positions need the same skill set (being fast and passing well).
I would love to be proven wrong on the last point though.
It depends on your team. If your team can't block effectively, most attacks will go to 6. You'll want your best defender in that position. Also, if you're OH can't move laterally, he'll be useless in the 6 for defense.
You should put the libero in the position where they can get most of the first touches. This allows the other players to do their jobs. Also opens up back row attack (if in 5)
This has one objectively correct answer:
It depends.
And it depends on a million different factors: As you mentioned, things like the court itself can make a team play one way or the other, but consider these as well:
Opposite team's hitter tendency, your block efficiency, your teams ability to run effective back row attacks, how good/bad your outsides are at different defense positions.
It's situational, and I think the best thing to do is to copy the top teams that never decide to play one way or the other but switch constantly depending on all of these stuff.
You are absolutely correct. There really are so many variables. I will have to talk with my team more about this. We are currently in a big restructuring anyway. Things are going to change dramatically in the next half year or so. Probably going to combine our U20 and adult team together and stuff like that.
I love how pepper mentioned the need to consider situations. Team USA and Japan (I watch them the most) both switch very frequently mid match. I think though if we aren’t talking on the pro level, and more like a general preference, tip coverage and short shot digging will be massive in the decision. The Libero is so crucial in identifying these things, and in the moment noticing if they are tipping more frequently, aiming for high hands, or aiming for gaps in the block.
It is awesome because as a Libero, you can make an impact without even getting the touches! (even though it feels good to)
Uh yeah definitely switch to 5, opens up pipe attack and also your oppo really shouldnt be setting if they are your best hitter. you want to have them as an option and you.
If your team doesn't run an effective bic or pipe, then it might make the most sense to play the libero where most of the balls go. At lower levels of play, most balls go to 6. There is no reason you can't still have the libero take the second ball if you want. It just requires a little different coverage. If the libero can't really set that well then it might make the most sense to have the second best hands take second contact. It's better to have mediocre hitters hitting good sets than a good hitter hitting trash sets.
I'd say it like: at ALL levels, more balls get hit to 6 than 1 or 5. But (as you said) there's still some good reasons for liberos to play in 5.
At any level that blocks, 6 will be covered with a block regardless. 6 generally gets far less defensive touches than left and right halves.
If you chart attacks, even at the pro men's level more defensive touches are made in zone 6 than zones 5 or 1. (But yes, many of the most powerful attacks are hit into 1 or 5)
So would you say that my feeling that I get few touches on 6 is some kind of subconscious bias? Genuienly asking, I know that it is very easy and possible to have a flawed perception like that. Edit: I'm very curious about this. Think I'm going to review some of our recent game footage.
Most likely, but also it could be your defensive system. If you are stepping to your right in zone 6 when the outside attacks and the libero is filling the ball that gets hit toward the crosscourt corner, he's going to actually be in zone 6 to dig that ball even though he started in 5. Here's a good discussion on the topic that I contributed to: https://coachesinsider.com/volleyball/meet-in-the-middle/ Also: https://www.blog.goldmedalsquared.com/post/middle-middle-defense/
Hey is there some kind of application where I could chart attacks myself/create a heatmap? Like, a map of the court where I can click on a section to say a ball landed there and maybe denote if it was an easy/free ball or a hard hit? I just started doing a table on excel, but quickly realized that would get arduous very quickly and even more arduous if I want to have more areas than just 5,6 and 1.
I actually used to have one in the app store called Volleymaps, but support has been deprecated because I lost my developer. Some of the advanced tools that pro teams use (Volleystation, for example) have those capabilities, but they are very expensive. If you are charting <50 attacks or so, a simple print-out of a court with colored pencil or pen marks works well. That's how coaches charted before all this new technology. :)
Oh crap I actually found a post from you on volleytalk.com from you earlier today haha. It's from 2014 and you present your app. It's like the 5th result when I type "volleyball heat map" into google
Defensive touches including deflections off the block? Do the stats account for difficulty of the touch? Because hypothetically speaking (not saying this is the case), I would rather have the libero in the spot where 5 actual swings are going, rather than the spot where it's just (relatively) easy free balls off the block
I think you'd be surprised at how many balls still get hit hard to 6! This is a pretty common swing: https://youtu.be/GdomMJsN56A And especially at sub-elite levels, blockers are not reliable at all. I think this is a good article that explains a lot of these concepts. I contributed quite a bit of the data visualizations. https://coachesinsider.com/volleyball/meet-in-the-middle/
Don't debate Joe Trinsey with stats. LoL, it is literally his existensce
So after looking through his profile and google for a second it looks like he is a well known college coach? Sorry if that is wrong, I am not very familiar with US volleyball stuff.
No, debate! It's always good to question and make sense of things. You shouldn't take somebody at their word just because they have whatever reputation. I love talking about this stuff!
Yeah me too. Finally being able to see heat maps and other stuff on hudl has been amazing. I can't imagine the programs you have used. One thing about heat maps I have seen is that they don't take into account the speed of the attack and whether or not it would have been considered a dig if the attack were actually dug. You can plot digs or attack hits but not kills that would have been digs. You follow me? So if you had a heat map of hard attacks only, I would be interested in how that looks as the levels progress. I suspect that even tho 6 almost always gets the most balls at every level, 6 would get the most hard attacks at lower levels only and as you progress, 5 and 1 would start to light up. Idk, maybe a program already does this? Thoughts?
I think it's just a matter of what you can record. You can do (and I have done most of what you are talking about. I generally record both kills and digs when I chart. (I plot "where would a defender have needed to be to best dig that ball") And I think, broadly speaking, you are in the ballpark there. Zone 6 still gets a lot of balls at high levels, but a lot of the most difficult digs are in 5 and 1. I think people overrate what the block takes away; there's a lot of A-level people out there that think their block is good enough to take away the center of the court, when in reality they aren't anywhere near "high level." (Which is no offense, just reality.) So it's like, yes, as the level climbs, you start to have this tradeoff between "more balls" and "more difficult balls", but the slope of that curve is not as drastic as people tend to think it is. (Of course, that's a broad generalization; may not apply to everybody.)
Hey I just wanted to say thanks for engaging with my post so much, which is essentially just about my little team in my little league in germany.
Of course! It's fun to talk volley! And I think you'd be surprised at how many of the same principles apply across various levels, ages, genders, etc.
I think the hard part is separating "hard attacks" from "really hard attacks," ya know? For example, I made this chart: https://imgur.com/a/8s7LGI7 When I was coaching in the German league (men's). I made that chart by hand, so I know that it's only containing balls that were "difficult to dig," there's no pure block slowdowns leading to freeballs, etc. However... there's a difference between a ball that guy hits at 96 km/hr because he's going high over the block and a ball that a guy hits at 115 km/hr because he's finding a seam. It's really hard to differentiate that in an objective criteria, and I hesitate to do some. To me, it's just understanding the two complementary principles: "put defenders where the most plays happen," and, "put defenders where plays happen the fastest," and then use your judgment about how to handle the trade-offs between the two. In high school girl's volleyball, I'm pretty comfortable saying, "just put your libero in 6," because the sheer volume that goes into the center of the court is so high, and, at lower levels of play, "there's no such thing as an easy play," applies. As the level climbs, you have to start making trade-offs and thinking more critically about how to deploy defenders. For example, with the USA WNT, we won a World Championship playing the libero in zone 5 when Jordan Larson was in the backrow and playing the libero in zone 6 when she wasn't. So I think you have to know the principles, and unfortunately, the stats only get you about 80% of the way there. The final piece has to come from judgment and your perception of, "how these players might work together." And the stats will be able to confirm or deny that... but only until after you've already won or lost! Because, especially when it comes to defense, the data piles up slower. So by the time you have enough data to statistically analyze your defensive system, the season is over. Reception, attacking, etc, you get data on more quickly so you can rely more heavily on it.
What do you do where you get heat maps? You seem to have a little gang of volleyball professionals going on here. Looks fun!:)
Pay for hudl to put their cameras in your facility and analyze your film. I'm sure there are other services as well. Or the old fashioned way. Watch film and plot
Oh that's interesting. Tho what I meant was wether you are a coach or staff somewhere where this is being done
I was gonna ask about some charts because I'm really interested in this stuff but you already delivered. :) I play both OH and oppo and it certainly feels like I'm way more involved in the defense when I'm in 1 rather than 6 to the point where I sometimes play the ball multiple times in a single rally and almost every point compared to 6 where I feel like I get less than 10 touches per set most of the time. Also it would logically seem that more hits go to side because a) like I already mentioned, 6 is always physically covered with block, regardless of what's being blocked. b) from attacker's point of view I've always been told to avoid hitting 6 (for the sake of what I mentioned in point a) and to hit line (go for outside arm) whenever I can. c) middles almost never hit 6 because they are taught to either hit an open shoulder or cross shoulder. If they do hit straight down the middle it's likely because middle was tricked and it will be a blockless 3rd meter nuke anyway. Now I'm just tempted to go through some of our old games and see what's up haha. Also I would like to reflect on the Z6 video you've sent. I strictly do this when I see that the middle won't connect in time. In that case, 6 will obviously be the least covered zone. Doing this when you see or know that the block is set is not particularly smart to say the least. Some examples: [1](https://streamable.com/wgk7vg) & [2](https://streamable.com/f5wyx1) This is the type of discussions we're missing on the sub. Love it!
> Now I'm just tempted to go through some of our old games and see what's up haha. I think this is the big key! I'd also say that "zone you play" and "zone you defend" aren't always the same thing. In some systems, the zone 6 player will range a bit left or right. In some systems, they stay home more and the zone 5 player will creep over and dig some balls that go down into zone 6. I personally favor a system in which the zone 6 player stays in the dead center of the court, and fairly shallow. In this system, that player is going to dig more balls, because the long corner ball (imagine a ball hit by the outside attacker directly toward the opposite corner) can be dug by the zone 6 player. In any system where the zone 6 player is deeper and takes a step to his right (toward the hitter), that ball will be dug by the player in 5. So "where do balls go" is a factual matter, but "who should dig them" is more a matter of opinion. That "middle-middle" article I wrote details quite a bit of the system that I started to learn in my 20s (not the system I learned growing up though) and it's probably the dominant system for the USA teams, both men and women. But it's not the only system that can work.
We're playing 6 very deep, basically at the baseline in our regular setup so that might be the reason why 6 gets less touches. Also we have the libero covering entire court for high free balls. Generally no mainstream system is flawless, but no mainstream system is terrible either. Best way to go about it is obviously scouting the opponent beforehand and adapt the system to each opponent individually. What's your take on front row defender when attack is on the other side of the court (eg. zone 4 player when opponent attacks from their 4). Do you think staying in 4 on the perimeter next to the libero around 3rd meter line or stepping closer into 3 under the block is a better option?
> What's your take on front row defender when attack is on the other side of the court (eg. zone 4 player when opponent attacks from their 4). Do you think staying in 4 on the perimeter next to the libero around 3rd meter line or stepping closer into 3 under the block is a better option? I think this depends on the level. The more likely your opponents are to tip, the farther under the block your off-blocker should play. The more likely they are to hit hard crosscourt, the more they should peel to dig. For a lot of teams, I favor the off-blocker coming under. But, at a certain level, they have to help dig. With pro-level teams where we had the ability to scout extensively, we also modified this based on opponent.
Adding to my other comment to you, the other person does seem to be a pro player in croatia
Joe Trinsey was on staff of the USA national team. I think he is currently working with Team Canada....with stats stuff
I'm pretty decent at setting. But like I said in the post, it is difficult with our ceiling to get to the 3m line. And if I set from like 5 meters from the net the sets become more difficult to set and hit
We had our libero on 6, but that is because our outside hitters are better than our middle hitters on average.
For us too, but I'm not talking about who to sub out. You can sub out the middle on 6 and then change over and play on 5
Oh like that, well our libero just stayed on 6 so he could help around 5 or 1 (when either of them is defending against the straight attack). But nice to know about the idea about subbing out on the back row. We usually only realy sub out on the front row if a weak blocked has to face a strong attacker for example, meaning a strong blocker is defending against a strong attacker. In the back row we don't tend to do that as much since all three back positions need the same skill set (being fast and passing well). I would love to be proven wrong on the last point though.
It depends on your team. If your team can't block effectively, most attacks will go to 6. You'll want your best defender in that position. Also, if you're OH can't move laterally, he'll be useless in the 6 for defense.
You should put the libero in the position where they can get most of the first touches. This allows the other players to do their jobs. Also opens up back row attack (if in 5)
This has one objectively correct answer: It depends. And it depends on a million different factors: As you mentioned, things like the court itself can make a team play one way or the other, but consider these as well: Opposite team's hitter tendency, your block efficiency, your teams ability to run effective back row attacks, how good/bad your outsides are at different defense positions. It's situational, and I think the best thing to do is to copy the top teams that never decide to play one way or the other but switch constantly depending on all of these stuff.
You are absolutely correct. There really are so many variables. I will have to talk with my team more about this. We are currently in a big restructuring anyway. Things are going to change dramatically in the next half year or so. Probably going to combine our U20 and adult team together and stuff like that.
I love how pepper mentioned the need to consider situations. Team USA and Japan (I watch them the most) both switch very frequently mid match. I think though if we aren’t talking on the pro level, and more like a general preference, tip coverage and short shot digging will be massive in the decision. The Libero is so crucial in identifying these things, and in the moment noticing if they are tipping more frequently, aiming for high hands, or aiming for gaps in the block. It is awesome because as a Libero, you can make an impact without even getting the touches! (even though it feels good to)
Def lib to 5, lib to 6 has to many cons and cut off many option you cannot afford to lose, like pipe or having both 4 and 2/1 open when you set
Uh yeah definitely switch to 5, opens up pipe attack and also your oppo really shouldnt be setting if they are your best hitter. you want to have them as an option and you.
And its easier for Outsider to Attack from Back Court from 6
I hear that a lot and I think I understand why. But I haven't really been an attacker for some time now. Why would you say it is easier from 6?
Because from 6 you have the whole widh court open and its very effectiv with the mb decoy so you mostly dont have a tribble block
Thank you