Stats for Spikes- It's a Statistical Trap!

Sports can be viewed as a continuous flow of actions. We define discrete stages within the flow so that we can observe and analyze the reality of sports because we humans need to slow time down to a point where we can process what we are seeing in our minds. The stages that we define are used to develop an understanding of the flow; the stages do not  reflect the reality of the game. A natural stage marker in a rebound sport such as volleyball is the termination point, that is, when the ball is whistled dead.  Most of the statistics that we do keep — kills, assists, aces, blocks, block assists, and all the associated errors   —  results from  a dead ball. There are some statistics that we take that don’t directly happen at the stoppage of play, but they are statistics that lead to the dead ball: assists, passes, and digs are some that comes to mind. We also count the number of attempts as a way to decide on our efficiency numbers, those are statistics that do not fall into the dead ball/point scored category.

Taking statistics of a volleyball match gives us a simple picture of the match, but because most statistics that we can take are dead ball statistics, it only gives us the endings of a flurry of action. These simple statistics allows us to capture the facts as we know them according to the points scored. What is left not recorded is most of the match. Just as Mozart proposed about music: “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between". Volleyball is in the movements between touches, and we are unable to take complete statistics on the space in between. Videos are often used today to capture those moments that are missing from the statistics, but not many coaches in the club and high school ranks have access or the staff to completely analyze videos.

As Dr. W. Edward Deming so famously observed: there are many things that are unmeasurable and there are many things that are unknowable. In the realm of sports, those moment between touches are unmeasurable. The reason for the movements of the individuals moving in a complicated and coordinated team dance with their teammates is unknowable. The way to capture the magic of the game between touches is as elusive as capturing the silence between the notes.

While it is critical for coaches to look at those scoring statistics and understand how they, or their opponents are scoring, we need to recognize that those statistics are but a minimal record of what took place. The scoring-based statistics ignores all the interaction between the individual playing in the game; the individual decisions made by each player and how those decisions are acted and reacted upon by their teammates and opponents; it also ignores the cumulative actions by the team as they react to an action and more importantly, whether they are acting and reacting according to how they had been trained to play.

The scoring-based statistics also ignores the effect of how the teams respond to each other. This point was made after the final match of the 2020 NCAA Division I championships between Kentucky and Texas. My friend and I were discussing the stellar play between these two teams. He made the observation that he was surprised at how seemingly porous the  Texas’ defense was, especially for a team that is playing in the national championship match. My response was incredulity. I believe that the reason Texas was losing on the defensive front was because the potency of the Kentucky offense, that the effectiveness of the Kentucky offense made the Texas defense look overwhelmed, which they were. The point is that sports is an activity based on dualities that act as a whole. Tough serving forces passing errors. Great passing makes great serving look like they were serving lollypops. Great blocking can make a porous backrow defense look like world beaters. A poor block can make the best defenders look hapless. Great setting can make a mediocre hitter look like an all American. Great hitter can make a poor setter look phenomenal. Great offenses can make good defenses look overwhelmed. Coaches know and understand these symbiotic relationships inherently.

Why is this so concerning? It is concerning if you are a coach and you don’t understand the back-and-forth flow of the game, it is concerning if you don’t understand that the two teams are coupled as participants in the game, that they cannot perform their intricate sports defined dances without the other, that they are connected through this pursuit we call the game of volleyball.

Most coaches understand this implicitly, most who are new to the game do not understand the implications of the interconnectedness of the two opposing sides.

Even the experienced coaches who understand the game well can fall into a trap set by the statistics. Recent studies revealed that our minds will easily and naturally adapt to new ways of working; naturally giving up old habits as our minds create new habits in reaction to new cognitive challenges. In The Shallows, Nicholas Carr explores the changes in cognitive behavior wrought by the internet: decreases in our attention span, our growing difficulty in focusing on a single task, our frustration in being unable to read for an extended period because we have adapted easily to reading short and simple articles versus hefty and complex books. Most pernicious is our waning ability to think in complicated and conceptual ways because we have adopted the habit of simplifying concepts down to base essentials. Note that I am not a luddite advocating for returning to adapting overcomplicated concepts to explain our games, just for the sake of exercising our cognition. A quote that is most often attributed to Albert Einstein states: Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. Which is a variant on Occam’s Razor or the law of parsimony. It is the not simpler part of the quote that applies here. Instead of overcomplicating our explanations for why the game moves the way it does, we are subconsciously oversimplifying our explanations in order to make our explanations fit the statistics we have collected.

The act of using volleyball statistics that is only taken for scoring points, narrows  a person’s frame of reference for their vision of the game flow through only the statistics. It changes the way a person’s brain operates, it emphasizes the singular and discrete dead ball dictated actions rather than the flow of a multitude of continuous action. Indeed, if he/she allows the statistical mindset to dominate his/her internal vision of the game,  the focus on statistics forces the coach to ignore the connections between the actions.

This focus on the recordable statistics encourages resulting: (https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2018/12/volleyball-coaching-life-resulting.html)

Resulting can be defined as our propensity to mistake the quality of our decisions with the outcome of the decision, that is, we let the result determine how we judge our decision.

Instead of following their global view of how the game is played, a coach would excuse what he/she would usually see as bad playing or making bad decisions by resulting, assuming that their team is playing well because they are winning, or they are scoring.

Our emphasis on using statistics comes from a natural reaction against coaches depending excessively on “gut feel” or passing the “eye test”. Those heuristics are more often than not fraught with biases that are subconscious as well. Statistics becomes extremely useful when coaches use statistics to determine whether their “gut feel” stands up to the challenges of reality. But if coaches’ understanding of the match is filtered through the statistics that are derived from just the points scored, then the coach’s focus is so narrowed that the reality that he/she sees is  distorted, their understanding of what is happening in the match is skewed, which affects their decision making, and ultimately impact their coaching.

This kind of distortion can roughly be interpreted as an application of  Goodhart’s Law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” (https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2021/03/stats-for-spikes-use-of-statistics-as.html)

This is not to say that this habit has overwhelmed the ranks of all coaches; while some experienced coaches may fall into this trap occasionally, I believe that their experience will come to the fore so that they catch themselves. My concern is with those coaches who are not experienced in seeing the game in all its multifaceted glory. Every coach has to start somewhere and if the coach in question did not have the  advantage of having played the game at a high level; if they had not studied the game and its pedagogy thoroughly; or if they have not thought through the game extensively, they would not have an internal vision of the game at its most competitive level. Those are the coaches that would most likely be susceptible to fall into the habit viewing the game through just the statistics.

Every beginning coach is looking for an edge, and statistics is an edge to be had, it is a very potent edge, but statistics is also just one tool in the toolbox; one need to use all the tools that are available. By adopting the statistics-based goggles, they are depriving themselves of a deeper understanding of the game, and they are doing a disservice to their profession and players by limiting themselves and their vision of the game to just a tiny part of the greater whole.

While experienced coaches can self-correct when they fall into the habit, the inexperienced coach will more than likely fall into the habit and not realize that they are in a trap.

So what to do?

·       Be aware: use the statistics but catch yourself getting too focused on the surface level of  statistics.

·       Avoid extrapolating or making inferences based on the surface level statistics.
·       Double check the statistics with your own observations, does the two pictures mesh?
·       Be aware of resulting. Question whether your team executed, you won or lost the point.
·       Trace the logical sequence of the game action.
·       Understand which questions you are asking, we will often substitute a question that has an answer in place of the question that we really want to ask, but we don’t have the data to answer the original question.
·       Understand and accept that there are data that can not be measured and knowledge that can not be known.
·       When in doubt, actively evoke Admiral Ackbar during the your systematic examination of information to make decisions.

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.