Volleyball Coaching Life-The Five Set Mystique

The five-set match has a mystique to it, even though the premise of the competition format is similar a best 2 out of 3 sets, the best 3 out of 5 set matches are much more than that in our minds. Much of the mystique has to do with how we perceive the numbers. Our numeracy bias makes us think that a 3-0 win is automatically a wipeout, a complete win, even though each of the three sets could be close and either team could have won, the indictment against the losing team is that the losing team just did not have it, whatever “it” is: they were physically mismatched, they did not have the intestinal fortitude to overcome the challenges, they weren’t up to the competition, et. al. The four-set decision is deemed better in our mind, because a 3-1 loss gives the losing team a bit of a cover: at least they put up a fight but just didn’t have “it” at the crucial point, i.e. win that second set to even the set count at two apiece. We unconsciously rate the loser of the four-set match better than the loser of the three-set match because they were assumed to be more competitive, they were thus on a higher level than the loser of the three-set match, even though we are discounting the role that the opponent’s performance plays in the final count.

But we believe that the five-set match gives us a clearer picture of the two teams as evenly matched because winning two sets out of the first four gives both teams credentials to lay claim to winning the match outright. Those two set wins are not considered a fluke as the single set win is considered a fluke in the four-set match.

The psychology of the five-set match is always interesting, because we coaches are always curious about how some teams can manage themselves emotionally and perform physically in the most trying circumstances. The question is always about sustainability: how the winning team manages to sustain their competitive edge after losing  two sets, what does the losing team lack as they falter and not able to win the fifth set after winning two sets?

It is with that curiosity as well as having the time, that I superficially compiled the information on the five set matches in the recent NCAA tournament, at least through the first four rounds, up to the end of the regional finals.

There have been nine five-set matches in the first four rounds of this year’s COVID adjusted 2020 NCAA D1 tournament. Two in the fourth round. Two in the third round, Two in the second round, and three in the first round.  

The information is presented in a table below and is sorted according to the order of how the winning team won their sets.

 

Round	Match Winner	Sets won by the Winner of the Match	Match Loser
2	Washington	1, 2, 5	Dayton
1	Western Kentucky	1, 2, 5	Washington State
4	Wisconsin	1, 3, 5	Florida
3	Washington	1, 4, 5	Louisville
2	Baylor	1, 4, 5	Pepperdine
1	Morehead State	2, 3, 5	Creighton
1	High Point	2, 3, 5	UCF
3	Pittsburgh	2, 4, 5	Minnesota
4	Washington	3, 4, 5	Pitt

 

The question of momentum was at the top of my mind. Given that the five set winners had to deal with processing losing two sets, I was curious to see what the limited amount of data can tell us, if anything, whether there is a pattern to the winning. Note that this exercise does not take into account all that is important with coaching volleyball: we are not considering the effects of on whether coaches spin the dial to get better matchups, make substitutions, change serve receive, change blocking scheme, change defensive systems, in other word, this exercise just focuses on  the set win sequence.

There are six different ways to win in a five-set match, two teams won sets 1,2 and 5; two teams won sets 1, 4, and 5; two teams won sets 2, 3, and 5; and one team won sets 2, 4, and 5. One team was able to complete the come back from being down two sets and winning the last set, that was Washington in the regional finals, while one team won all the odd number sets: Wisconsin. So the winning patterns seem to be evenly distributed across all the possibilities, we had three patterns that had only one team winning that way, but we only had nine matches that went five-sets and we had six patterns. Not very significant.

Five teams won the match after winning the first set to lead off, while three teams won the second set to lead off, and only one team won the match after losing two sets and winning the third, once again it was Washington.

In my mind, winning the five-set match while winning sets 3, 4, and 5 may be more difficult, because it is difficult to sustain that elevated  level of play and mental awareness for three straight sets, an extrapolation of the difficulties of beating the same opponent three times during a season. In my mind, it takes an extraordinary effort against an evenly matched opponent who are, we presume, increasingly motivated if not desperate as they drop the two intervening sets. Barring a complete collapse by the opponent who is up two sets, which can possibly happen, the 3-4-5 winner is  probably a more difficult scenario for the five-set win. Yet Washington, after playing in only five-set matches in their journey to the final four managed to do it. Ironically, it was also Washington who came back from giving up sets 3 and 4 to Dayton to come back and win the fifth set.

On the other hand, if one were to believe in momentum, one would imagine that once the teams were able to win two sets back-to-back going into the fifth set, that their probability of success in set 5 would be greater than 50%. Yet, there were two matches were the winning teams won sets 1, 2, and 5; meaning that two team that came back to win sets 3 and 4 lost the fifth. Both Dayton and Washington State were not able to ride that mythical momentum of winning two sets to a fifth set win.

Further, four out of the nine winning teams had presumably rode that mythical momentum by winning the fifth after winning the fourth, while five teams won despite losing the fourth set to win the fifth.

So, what does all that mean?

The clustering of the numbers from the very small data space I chose means absolutely nothing. I was just piqued by the possibilities and succumbed to the natural human need to see rational patterns. Many people who are  coaches are also seduced by the need to find logic where there seemingly isn’t any logic. Part of the reason for coaches’ desire to find a pattern is to explain game results so that they can gain an edge.

Unfortunately, that logic is erroneous, it is backwards. The thinking employed is using the results of the experiment, the five set matches that have been played, to create a theory that is deliberately manipulated to fit the data. Science works the other way: proffer a theory and then collect data to prove or disprove the theory.

Indeed, the coaching mind leads us to the next paradigm: conjectures about the intangible and qualitative factors which could affect the way the players play, which intangibles would give the team an edge? In due course, the conversation turns naturally to the most intangible, immeasurable, and barely controllable factors which are recognizable from a coaching standpoint: the human mind, our ability to process situations which are wicked and not kind.  The words “mental toughness” is inevitably invoked,  and the overused  buzzwords starts getting thrown around: grit, resilience, mental strength, and the usual cliché of the moment regarding human behavior while under competitive stress.

While I am a firm believer in those concepts, I also believe that they are concepts, they are not roadmaps to solutions. The difference is that the definitions for these concepts are often amorphous and multifaceted because the concepts are so broad and all encompassing. Indeed, most people use these words with casual and partial understanding of the concepts.  Coaches are an eager and captive audience when it comes to any concept that would help them get the edge, they are all eager to either  jump on the latest bandwagon without understanding because it shows an inkling of a solution to their perceived problems, it matters not whether the solutions are feasible or based in reality.

Indeed, the problems are so difficult to define in tangible terms that most casual observers  are incapable of identifying, defining, or explicating them clearly. Most people see sports psychology and mental training as Justice Potter Stewart saw obscenity: “I know it when I see it”; but knowing it when you see it does not translate into actionable plans to train the players so that they are resilient, gritty, and being able to perform flowingly to win that fifth set.

The disconnect is that people cannot translate the words into action.  Most coaches are familiar with training the body for playing the game, they are usually not familiar with how to train the mind for the game. Their familiarity and their ease in being able to execute the necessary pedagogy in prescribing a solution to the physical training made them believe that they can do the same thing with the mental training. Most will apply the pedagogy of repeating the words often enough the athletes will  automatically translate those words/concepts into beliefs, motivation, and results. Of course, we believe in that short cut from the words to action is a valid response because we believe that it should be that simple. If you only believed, then we will triumph. Of course, it doesn’t explain the scenario where both teams believe, what then? Who wins?

It is a cultural habit, we deeply internalize the belief from The Field of Dreams: “if we build it, they will come.” Well, not necessarily. We believe that hopes and dreams are all we need to succeed in the face of adversity. Hopes and dreams bolsters us psychologically, it makes us optimistic, it enables us to extend ourselves physically and mentally, but hopes and dreams doesn’t consider the opponent’s response, the bounce of the ball, and all the other intangibles; hopes and dreams does not directly affect the players’ mental capabilities enough so that they are prepared for the five-set match.

This is not to denigrate the arts of sports psychology. On the contrary, a strong and systematically built culture centered around the development of the mental skills to achieve those words by patiently changing human habits is what it takes: to create the environment and ethos for successes in winning that five-set match.

Many coaches will subscribe to the program of the week and to short term solutions. At best, the impatient coaches will use the  latest books, seminars, and workshops which promises a do-it-yourself mental toughness kit, usually promising results in days or weeks rather than in months and years. At worst, the impatient coach may try their hands at the autodidactic route, sampling the popular literature which also promises quick solutions and inadequate fundamental understanding of the art of mental training. These same coaches would recoil in horror if a rank amateur were given the task of training their teams for volleyball, but they think nothing of undertaking the mental training aspects of their team on their own.

In order to achieve success that everyone desires: taking the players, indeed the entire program, to the heights of succeeding in the five-set match, a culture needs to be cultivated and built from the bottom up by those who are knowledgeable and well versed in the methods of mental training.

In the aftermath of the five-set matches of this year’s NCAA tournament, many of the student athletes and coaches from the winning teams were interviewed by the announcers. In my uneven sampling of the interviews, they very rarely talk about the usual clichés, but they do talk in terms of process, environment, space to learn, learning to deal with their own inner voices, and chances to make mistakes. All of what they talk about is the culture. Establishing the right culture puts the program on the right track to potentially winning those five-set matches, but it doesn’t guarantee success, your program is just better positioned to succeed. Establishing the wrong culture will however, guarantee that your program will have difficulties overcoming the challenges presented by the five-set match.

In the end, this was a fun exercise, it laid out in a limited scale, the information and it proved to my mind that we need to play in the moment while relying on our training, both physical and mental.