Could it just be down to a random element? Like a close game of football where each have 5 shots each but one wins 4-0?

Hi Christer. I will look at this later, I was going to write something about the Columbia vs Ames game last weekend but never got round to it. 

It could simply be that you were unlucky. On Sunday in OASL my team had a 9.4 to 1 4 % advantage but the shots were 5 to 4 I think, and we lost 1-0. OASL has 5 rolls per minute per side to score a goal. TMVL has up to 10 rolls just to see if it's a kill or carry on with a dig. More rolls should average out in the long run but even then getting a great roll for your serve doesn't mean you'll win the point -  and getting a bad roll doesn't mean you'll lose it. It's getting the good ones at the right time.

In that Ames game the sets were close but one place Ames were unlucky was Setter attacks. An 11 ATK Setter should get 8 out of 9 attacks in. Guzman only got 5. 9 attacks is a lot, my Setter only had 5 attacks, so the advice there would be don't put your Setter in that situation. Hence "play him at #1 to avoid Setter dumps."

In our game the final set had 48 points. We both scored 16 on our opponent's serves. You scored 7 on your serves and we scored 5. It could be down to one dig or missed attack. You score more when receiving (75% in that set but 67% in the Ames final set) so I'll look at that. It could be you had some bad runs on Receive with maybe a weak attacker getting the ball a lot.

More later.

I'm going to highlight 4 stats that I believe made the difference in the Squirrels v Mushrooms match Christer references.  These 4 feed into each other, and really show how any one area can go wrong and throw off the chance of getting a point on that particular rally.  If you go to the Match Summary tab, look at these four columns for comparison:

Under Receive - RT (serve receive rating).  A higher score (closer to 3, the best) means that the quality of the receive and pass to the setter is better.  Both teams had equal errors on receiving (3), yet Mendon had a solid edge in the quality of the passing, 2.40 to 2.22 on average.  In particular, Mendon's top 2 receivers were over 2.5, meaning they had more 3's than 2's.  The Squirrels didn't have any player over 2.5, and one of theirs was 2.0 for the match.  Worse passing off the serve pulls the Setter out of an ideal position, and makes it more likely that the set goes to a weaker hitter, ends up with multiple blockers, or has to end up in a low-percentage setter dump.

Under Set - Pct (setting percent).  A higher percent means that more of the sets ended up being an assist, i.e. the set led to an immediate kill.  For the match, MM had .603, versus .423 for SS.  The Squirrels had 15 more setting and subsequent kill chances over the 3-set match, yet ended up with 5 fewer assists.  The quality of both the setter (14 for MM, 11 for SS) played into this, as the Squirrels did not have their best guy out there, and the quality of the sets by random chance both factored in here.

So thus far we see in this match that SS had significantly worse receiving numbers, which led to worse setting numbers.  What does that mean for the attacking/kill chance?  Look under the Attack column.  MM had an attack percentage of .449.  Impressive.  SS had .138.  Not so much.  While both teams had about the same number of kills (38 v 34), Mendon had way fewer attacking errors (7 as a team, vs. 23 for SS).  Better passes leading to better sets leads to better chances of quality hitting.  SS ended up with weaker passing, and worse setting, and their hitters couldn't compensate despite being better down the board.

Bad setting also leads to another factor which really carried the day for Mendon:  blocking.  A top notch receive to setter to hitter means that only player on the opponent's side can get into position for the block.  There is a high percentage chance of a kill every time that happens.  Weaker receiving and average or poor setting leads to multiple blockers being able to get up and make a wall for the hitter to try to get around.  Look in the Block column, BA stat (assisted blocks, i.e. multiple blockers got up and collectively stuffed the kill chance).  Mendon had 27.  Schenectady had 6.  There's the match difference in one stat.  21 more times the Mushrooms got up a better blocking front and made good on it, in a match that ultimately came down to SS losing the 3 sets by a combined 16 points.

So to recap: the receiving wasn't terribly far apart, yet was significant enough to set up worse setting chances.  The setting was off for SS's backup, while MM's setter rose to the challenge on the day.  Mediocre passing with weaker setting led to the SS hitters facing down multiple blockers on a regular basis, and MM's blockers (who collectively were worse than SS on the blocking skill points), because they could get multiple blockers up consistently, carried the day.  Better receiving and strongly superior setting led to weaker hitters having a far better chance of getting kills for Mendon.  The Squirrels were left with only one blocker being able to get into position on most of MM's points.  Both sides had similar digs (24 to 23), yet on every other scoring chance the Mushrooms ended up hitting more than twice as well, more than 4 times as well in the 3rd set.

This match is a great example of how all skill areas play into each other, as the receiving pulled the setting down, which led to worse sets, which created both weaker hitting and way better blocking chances.  Superior hitters (as SS had) just aren't effective if the setter can't get them the ball in a good position, either due to bad sets or bad passes pulling the setter out of position and making them have to do an excellent set just to give the hitter any chance at all.

Christer didn't get any help from the number generator, and replays of these lineups could well lead to SS winning more than losing.  In the end, on this day, Mendon received better and their setter took full advantage, feeding average hitters into great scoring chances against solo blockers, and leading to the upset.  The SS Outside Hitters had a collective lousy match, in both receiving and hitting.  The SS Middle Blockers played well, yet ultimately couldn't overcome the OHs having more hitting errors than kills, and being blocked 15+ times.

Following on from Kevin's post I looked at some numbers further.

On passing to the Setters, Mendon allowed 3 aces, got just 3 Pass 1, 14 Pass 2 and 28 Pass 3. Schenectady also allowed 3 aces but had 13 Pass 1, 12 Pass 2 and 32 Pass 3. A Pass 1 means 3 Blockers and this hurt Schenectady. As the SRV/RCV skills of both sides were similar (they add up to the same) I'd say Christer was unlucky here. 

I read through the match report to marry the blocks reported with the Summary. An assisted block (BA) will show up as 3 total points if there were 3 blockers.

Schenectady had 6 BA which is either 3 2-man blocks or 2-3 man. Unfortunately I could only find a solo block (not recorded as such in the summary - which I'll report to Al) and a multi-man block.

Mendon had 3 solo blocks (lucky) 6 2-man and 5 3-man blocks. A block also counts as an attacker error. 

I don't know who was at the net for each block but you'd expect similar amount of 2-man blocks for each team so maybe Christer unlucky here as well or Josh fortunate to have better blockers at the right time.

I also have something to say about server order but I'm on the phone doing this and need to make notes.

Thanks guys. Maybe it was luck then. But I admit that I rested my starters for this game aswell so I was expecting a loss. Just not in three sets. I would have loved five sets to get some extra XP. But it shows that the game has much more depth than you first see. Again thanks for your inputs Kevin and Steve.

Great analysis Kevin and Steve.  Thank you for that.  I think I learned some things there too.

Both Kevin and Steve make great points.  These players don't have just one skill.  And all these skills and contacts of the ball feed into the next one (for good or bad).

When you watch matches live for a while you'll start to see how quality plays and average plays matter and how that plays into who often wins the point.

Max has really done an incredible job of meshing all this together in a way a "non-volleyball player" like me never could have.

I still feel like I'm learning and have more to learn, so never feel like you have to know everything immediately.  Keep adding to your knowledge and asking questions as you go, as this game will be hard to master.  

Second paragraph "third set" should read "third rotation"

Did you make your seasonal sacrifice to the OLMEC head? That usually explains a lot....