I was going to reply to the Little Things Forum post with a couple of changes Craig could have done with his line-up. But then I thought I'd also look at the game he won. Dallas had exactly the same line-up for both games - they won one 3-0 and lost the other 1-3.

In the game they lost their average player rating was 80 compatred th their opponents 74. In the game they won it was 76 to 70 (they were at home against Merritt so players get a home advantage)

Despite having weaker receivers (16, 14, 10 compared to 16, 16, 12) Spokane received better than Merritt with a slightly higher RT (the average of all the passes to the setter) and got 60% 3s to Merritt's 55%. On the other hand Dallas did much better against Merritt with a 2.30 RT and 58% 3s compared to the game against Spokane with 2.14 RT and only 48% 3s. Dallas also served more errors against Spokane despite playing fewer sets.

The setter/attacker combinatins just worked better against Spokane despite the ATK being 1 point higher per man in the Merritt game. Also Merritt's slightly better attackers (the total of all 6 players ATK was the same but the avarage of the best 5 was better for Merritt) did a better job.

In the end it's mostly down to luck - or maybe just those little things that Merritt Island had/

I'd have still changed my Dallas line-up order though.