[M T]

Stanford's WVB 6-2 record results in a ranking of . . . .  #1 (AVCA)

https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/volleyball...ca-coaches

"Stanford received 28 first-place votes to Baylor's 27 and had 1,540 points to the Bears' 1,489. But the No. 2 ranking is still a program record for Baylor."
https://www.ncaa.com/news/volleyball-wom...aylor-no-1

I would not have thought that would be the case.  While Stanford has tremendous talent, and they've shown the ability to fight back, they've also shown a tendency to not bury the other teams when their talent could allow it. 

As I watched the warm-ups this past weekend, I thought it would be a short match and an quick win.  I haven't had the time to go back and watch the recorded game (or, at least, the first 2 hours) and see what went wrong.  It just seemed that BYU wanted it more.   Probably it is a reflection of my mind set, but it seemed like Stanford always felt like they didn't need to put BYU away as they always could come back on them.  They almost did ... but they still lost.

If I were the coach, I'd consider giving the team short-term goals.  Something like, you should be leading by 1 point at 10 total points into the set, 3 points at 20, 5 points at 30.  (But then, I'm only a fan and never played the sport.)   The idea is to drive home the do-your-work early ethic rather than figuring you can make it up later.


On a separate point, it has been interesting to see how the coaches on each team have been handling the use of challenges.  Certainly BYU ran out and wanted to challenge in the 4th set twice after they had no more.   They argued, but it seemed the officials sorta shrugged them off, as though thinking "There is a mechanism to challenge.  You spent your opportunities earlier.  Tough."

I still like the idea of a double or nothing challenge.  If you win your challenge, you get the point (or a replay).  If you lose (including the cameras didn't get a view of the play), you lose another point.  That should stop the challenge-as-timeout ploy.

[M T]

Stanford's WVB 6-2 record results in a ranking of . . . .  #1 (AVCA)

https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/volleyball...ca-coaches

"Stanford received 28 first-place votes to Baylor's 27 and had 1,540 points to the Bears' 1,489. But the No. 2 ranking is still a program record for Baylor."
https://www.ncaa.com/news/volleyball-wom...aylor-no-1

I would not have thought that would be the case.  While Stanford has tremendous talent, and they've shown the ability to fight back, they've also shown a tendency to not bury the other teams when their talent could allow it. 

As I watched the warm-ups this past weekend, I thought it would be a short match and an quick win.  I haven't had the time to go back and watch the recorded game (or, at least, the first 2 hours) and see what went wrong.  It just seemed that BYU wanted it more.   Probably it is a reflection of my mind set, but it seemed like Stanford always felt like they didn't need to put BYU away as they always could come back on them.  They almost did ... but they still lost.

If I were the coach, I'd consider giving the team short-term goals.  Something like, you should be leading by 1 point at 10 total points into the set, 3 points at 20, 5 points at 30.  (But then, I'm only a fan and never played the sport.)   The idea is to drive home the do-your-work early ethic rather than figuring you can make it up later.


On a separate point, it has been interesting to see how the coaches on each team have been handling the use of challenges.  Certainly BYU ran out and wanted to challenge in the 4th set twice after they had no more.   They argued, but it seemed the officials sorta shrugged them off, as though thinking "There is a mechanism to challenge.  You spent your opportunities earlier.  Tough."

I still like the idea of a double or nothing challenge.  If you win your challenge, you get the point (or a replay).  If you lose (including the cameras didn't get a view of the play), you lose another point.  That should stop the challenge-as-timeout ploy.

[oldalum]

I still like the idea of a double or nothing challenge.  If you win your challenge, you get the point (or a replay).  If you lose (including the cameras didn't get a view of the play), you lose another point.  That should stop the challenge-as-timeout ploy.

I bet coaches would hate this, it would raise the stakes too high for some challenges. Sometimes the challenges are valid but there isn't enough video evidence, and sometimes the officials screw up the video review like they did in one of our matches earlier this year with a totally obvious net violation that they somehow didn't see on review. There already is an incentive not to use low-probability challenges for timeouts: you lose them and might need them later as BYU did. If there is a problem with coaches using challenges instead of timeouts, which I'm not sure there is, the answer might be to lose a timeout if you lose a challenge. Or maybe during challenges, the challenging team (or both teams) has to stay on the opposite side of the court from the coaches and no communication is allowed.

[oldalum]

I still like the idea of a double or nothing challenge.  If you win your challenge, you get the point (or a replay).  If you lose (including the cameras didn't get a view of the play), you lose another point.  That should stop the challenge-as-timeout ploy.

I bet coaches would hate this, it would raise the stakes too high for some challenges. Sometimes the challenges are valid but there isn't enough video evidence, and sometimes the officials screw up the video review like they did in one of our matches earlier this year with a totally obvious net violation that they somehow didn't see on review. There already is an incentive not to use low-probability challenges for timeouts: you lose them and might need them later as BYU did. If there is a problem with coaches using challenges instead of timeouts, which I'm not sure there is, the answer might be to lose a timeout if you lose a challenge. Or maybe during challenges, the challenging team (or both teams) has to stay on the opposite side of the court from the coaches and no communication is allowed.