OK, you knew it was
eventually coming. Here we have a
statistics based post on the eve of travelling to Houston to see if SFA can
cure its road woes against the Huskies of HBU.
I held off this long, but you knew the numbers were going to get used to
make a few points at some point during the year.
While watching matches at
home, attending some of the recent road matches and following others on the
Internet, I’ve noticed something that I decided to check in the box
scores. Sure enough, my eyes weren’t
deceiving me:
The conference’s outside
hitters feast on our defense.
SFA is allowing other
teams’ outside hitters to put up big numbers night after night after
night. So, that leads me not to an
accusation, just a hypotheses that I can’t fully test: If you are a team that runs an offense focused
on the right and the middle, does this leave you partially inept to defend the
left?
I know you can practice
for specific opponents based on their offensive strengths. But, if their offensive strengths are
different than yours.. then does that leave you at a partial disadvantage to
actually execute because what you see in the game couldn’t be replicated as
strong as in practice?
You can’t defend what you
don’t have? Maybe my hypothesis is
false. I am very willing to believe it
is. But, whether my hypothesis is true
or not doesn’t change the original fact I presented:
The conference’s outside
hitters feast on our defense.
So far, SFA has played 8
conference matches and six times an opposing outside hitter has put up double
digit kills while hitting over .350. In
fact, this has occurred six conference matches in a row! Focus on that for a minute.
Each of the last six SLC
matches an opposing OH has hit .350 against us with 10+ kills:
Brink, TAMUCC, 18-5-31
(.419)
Cagnina, McNeese, 16-2-29
(.483)
Schnars, UCA, 16-1-21
(.714)
Pope, ORU, 19-6-36 (.361)
Elrod, NWLA, 19-2-44
(.386)
Thomas, SLU, 11-2-25
(.360)
Add up the attack
errors. You get 18. This almost hurts to type: The kill leading OH for our opposition is averaging
only three attack errors PER MATCH in the last 6 conference matches. You simply must force the main outside hitter
on the opposing team into more than three attack errors in a match to have any
chance of containing them.
If you start digging
deeper, it doesn’t get any prettier. The
two matches that are not reflected in that list above are our wins against
Nicholls and New Orleans. Well, Nicholls
had TWO outside hitters put up 19 kills against us (neither hit >.350), and
UNO is the worst team in the league.
So far, during conference
play we have had an outsider hitter reach double digit kills and hit over .350
just once (barely). That was Tori Bates
against SLU (10-3-20, .350). Now, you
can pick on me for choosing “10 kills” and “.350 hitting percentage” rather
arbitrarily, but go change your criteria to anything similar and you will come
to the same conclusion: We are not
stopping the main outside hitters in the conference from putting up big
numbers.
Bates’ 10-kill performance
against SLU is the only time ALL YEAR an SFA left side attacker has 10+ kills
while hitting over .350. Against us,
this has happened six times in conference and five times out of
conference. That’s 11 total times vs. 1.
To be fair, yes, our
middle blockers have put up 10 kills while hitting over .350 more than our
opponents (9 times for us, 4 times for opponents). I am certainly aware that Jill Ivy being hurt
limits our offense. Of course, that obvious. But, not having her defense in the matches
can’t be the only explanation for opposing outside hitters raking us over the
coals.
We need more offense and
we need to start shutting opposing pin hitters down.. or at least slow them
down. We have half of the conference
schedule left to fix some things, but there is no shortage of areas that could
improve. Let’s hope we do just that as
well as get everyone back healthy as soon as possible
Let me leave you with one
thought:
If your BLOCKERS are the
ones putting up the vast majority of stellar offensive nights, and the
opponents’ outside HITTERS aren’t getting defended with any consistency….
Isn’t that a little
backwards?