Volleyball Toolbox

How Attack Tendencies Can Help Every Kind of Coach

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See how our newest report for volleyball teams can help you teach, scout, plan and analyze more effectively.

You may have heard about our new attack tendencies report for volleyball teams on a Silver subscription or higher. This report unlocks a deeper understanding of your team and your opponents to give you confidence come game time.

Whether you tag matches yourself, or you let Hudl Assist handle the stats, this report will help you see what’s happening below the surface. But we know every coach is different. Here’s how you can use attack tendencies, no matter what kind of coach you are.

You coach because you’re passionate about helping your athletes get better. The wins are great, but what lights your fire is seeing players improve. Consider attack tendencies the newest accessory on your coaching toolbelt.

Maybe you have an outside whose attack percentage is lower than you’d like. They have a solid swing with some power behind it, but the ball just isn’t finding the floor. With attack tendencies, you can sit down with them and review their attacks. If you notice the player tends to attack left back—which isn’t great because most of your opponents put their libero there—you can work on thumb up shots during your next practice so the ball falls deep line.

With the speed of the game, it’s easy for you (and your coaching staff) to miss this. You might catch on by watching video, but that takes time. And looking at stats is great, but it’s not going to give you the full picture. That’s where attack tendencies come in. You see the what, where and why behind every swing and in turn, you can help your athletes improve their game and become greater offensive threats.

You’re bought into the value of video and record your matches from time to time. But data is a little scarier and, if we’re being honest, the word “analytics” makes your blood pressure rise. Let’s go over some of the basics of an attack tendencies report, and you can decide if it’s too advanced for your team (hint: it’s not).

Begin by looking at your team’s attacks. You can find exactly what you’re looking for by filtering by match, set, team or player—and now you can also filter by specific rotation, result or phase (first ball or transition) with this new report.

You know your team struggles to side out in rotation five. Filter by that rotation and first ball to see what’s working and what’s not. Are you out-of-system too much in serve receive? Is your setter not spreading the ball enough? Create a practice plan based on those insights so your team can celebrate more first-ball kills.

You don’t let your team play in a match they’re not prepared for. You spend countless hours watching scout film and planning your practices around what you find. Good news—the attack tendencies report will make this part of your job easier than ever.

You have your biggest match of the year coming up. It’s at home, against your rival who beat you in five sets the first time you played them this season. To get a win, you’ll need to be prepared offensively and defensively. Their middle’s .400 attack percentage catches your attention right away, so you dive into each swing. You notice their attacks are most often falling in the deep corners of the court, so you might switch to a rotational defense when they’re front row. You might even triple block the middle and be less concerned with what the pin hitters could do without a block.

No matter what you decide, this new report will make learning your opponents’ tendencies easier than ever. With the perfect scouting and practice plan in place, your team will be ready for the big match.

You love numbers so much, diving into your reports on Hudl is basically your favorite hobby. But a number only tells part of the story. Attack tendencies will change your view, so you can change your understanding.

Say you’re worried about the outside on the team you’re playing next week, so you dive into your stats report and click on #14’s attacks. You see the video clips that show all of those swings, but your opponent recorded from a side angle, so it’s hard to tell where the attacks are landing and where the hitter is taking off from.

Have no fear, the attack tendencies report is here. See the start and end location of every attack so you can plan your defense accordingly. Notice most of the sets aren’t getting all the way to the pin? Bring your right side and middle blocker in a couple of steps and challenge the attacker to go line—you’ll have a defender there anyway.

TL;DR: the possibilities for using attack tendencies are endless. We’re excited to see how this report will help club, high school and small college coaches and athletes improve, win, teach, plan and scout.


How Attack Tendencies Can Help Every Kind of Coach

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You may have heard about our new attack tendencies report for volleyball teams on a Silver subscription or higher. This report unlocks a deeper understanding of your team and your opponents to give you confidence come game time.

Whether you tag matches yourself, or you let Hudl Assist handle the stats, this report will help you see what’s happening below the surface. But we know every coach is different. Here’s how you can use attack tendencies, no matter what kind of coach you are.

You coach because you’re passionate about helping your athletes get better. The wins are great, but what lights your fire is seeing players improve. Consider attack tendencies the newest accessory on your coaching toolbelt.

Maybe you have an outside whose attack percentage is lower than you’d like. They have a solid swing with some power behind it, but the ball just isn’t finding the floor. With attack tendencies, you can sit down with them and review their attacks. If you notice the player tends to attack left back—which isn’t great because most of your opponents put their libero there—you can work on thumb up shots during your next practice so the ball falls deep line.

With the speed of the game, it’s easy for you (and your coaching staff) to miss this. You might catch on by watching video, but that takes time. And looking at stats is great, but it’s not going to give you the full picture. That’s where attack tendencies come in. You see the what, where and why behind every swing and in turn, you can help your athletes improve their game and become greater offensive threats.

You’re bought into the value of video and record your matches from time to time. But data is a little scarier and, if we’re being honest, the word “analytics” makes your blood pressure rise. Let’s go over some of the basics of an attack tendencies report, and you can decide if it’s too advanced for your team (hint: it’s not).

Begin by looking at your team’s attacks. You can find exactly what you’re looking for by filtering by match, set, team or player—and now you can also filter by specific rotation, result or phase (first ball or transition) with this new report.

You know your team struggles to side out in rotation five. Filter by that rotation and first ball to see what’s working and what’s not. Are you out-of-system too much in serve receive? Is your setter not spreading the ball enough? Create a practice plan based on those insights so your team can celebrate more first-ball kills.

You don’t let your team play in a match they’re not prepared for. You spend countless hours watching scout film and planning your practices around what you find. Good news—the attack tendencies report will make this part of your job easier than ever.

You have your biggest match of the year coming up. It’s at home, against your rival who beat you in five sets the first time you played them this season. To get a win, you’ll need to be prepared offensively and defensively. Their middle’s .400 attack percentage catches your attention right away, so you dive into each swing. You notice their attacks are most often falling in the deep corners of the court, so you might switch to a rotational defense when they’re front row. You might even triple block the middle and be less concerned with what the pin hitters could do without a block.

No matter what you decide, this new report will make learning your opponents’ tendencies easier than ever. With the perfect scouting and practice plan in place, your team will be ready for the big match.

You love numbers so much, diving into your reports on Hudl is basically your favorite hobby. But a number only tells part of the story. Attack tendencies will change your view, so you can change your understanding.

Say you’re worried about the outside on the team you’re playing next week, so you dive into your stats report and click on #14’s attacks. You see the video clips that show all of those swings, but your opponent recorded from a side angle, so it’s hard to tell where the attacks are landing and where the hitter is taking off from.

Have no fear, the attack tendencies report is here. See the start and end location of every attack so you can plan your defense accordingly. Notice most of the sets aren’t getting all the way to the pin? Bring your right side and middle blocker in a couple of steps and challenge the attacker to go line—you’ll have a defender there anyway.

TL;DR: the possibilities for using attack tendencies are endless. We’re excited to see how this report will help club, high school and small college coaches and athletes improve, win, teach, plan and scout.


A Flawed Reality: When it’s Time to Reflect

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Two years after landing the head coaching position he so badly desired, Coach Jones (not his real name) was quietly fired. The administrative staff realized they’d made a mistake hiring Jones. They weren’t quite sure why he didn’t work out. They did their homework.

Well, enough to consider him a solution to their coaching needs. However, what they couldn’t see is what did him in. After spending a month analyzing Jones, here are the flaws I uncovered:

  • Is overly demanding
  • Doesn’t listen
  • Is intolerant of dissent
  • Takes the credit for success
  • Blames others for mistakes
  • Is untrustworthy—doesn’t do what he says he’ll do
  • Is aloof—seen as arrogant
  • Has a dictatorial style
  • Is abrasive

It’s fairly obvious, after the fact, that Coach Jones has some serious flaws related to interpersonal interactions (he is comfortable with a transactional style of conversation) and relationship building. Nowhere in his flaws will you find a glitch in his knowledge of the sport. He has a great command of the X’s and O’s. But he has some serious team-building flaws.

The two primary blind spots that emerged are: 1) his need to be right in all situations, and 2) avoiding accountability to his players and staff. Coach Jones’ “I know” attitude produced such flaws as taking credit for success and his unwillingness to listen. The desire to avoid accountability (to the stakeholders) produced his blaming of others and his dictatorial leadership style and abrasive attitude toward relationship building created cool relationships between him and his staff and players.

The prognosis for Coach Jones is not good. If he fails to discover his fatal flaws his coaching career will never recover. As a prominent coach told me, “We’re pretty good at directing our players to change, but not so great at changing ourselves.”

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New to the Second Edition of Coaching for Leadership!

We are pleased to announce a new chapter to the second edition of the best-selling Coaching for Leadership. The chapter, The Big Shift: Unlock Your Team’s Potential by Creating Player-Led Teambuilding, connects the previous edition of this book to its origin, as well as to the future of team sports.

The new chapter sets forth a practical and applicable agenda for change and improvement. The reader is introduced to seven vital elements of change; seven shifts of traditional mental models that lead to the new core principles necessary for creating a player-led team culture. Click here for more information about Coaching for Leadership

About Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Cory Dobbs is the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership and a nationally recognized thought leader in the areas of leadership and team building.  Cory is an accomplished researcher of human experience. Cory engages in naturalistic inquiry seeking in-depth understanding of social phenomena within their natural setting.

A college basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition.  After a decade of research and development Cory unleashed the groundbreaking Teamwork Intelligence program for student-athletics. Teamwork Intelligence illuminates the process of designing an elite team by using the 20 principles and concepts along with the 8 roles of a team player he’s uncovered while performing research.

Cory has worked with professional athletes, collegiate athletic programs, and high schools teaching leadership and team building as a part of the sports experience and education process.  As a consultant and trainer Dr. Dobbs has worked with Fortune 500 organizations such as American Express, Honeywell, and Avnet, as well as medium and small businesses. Dr. Dobbs taught leadership and organizational change at Northern Arizona University, Ohio University, and Grand Canyon University.


How High School & Club Teams Can Dominate with Data

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The nation’s top volleyball teams are all in on stats and video. Now those same tools are available to high school and club coaches.

Statistics are vital to college and national volleyball teams. Their coaches comb through the numbers, looking for any faults that could be improved upon. They have members of their staffs dedicated to analysis.

But this data isn’t limited to the nation’s best squads. With Hudl and Volleymetrics teaming up, these insights are also available to high school and club teams.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,” Giuseppe Vinci, the founder of Volleymetrics and consultant coach for the U.S. National teams, said. “We’re trying to take something very complex down to just a few numbers that can really help coaches on that level focus on the right things.

“It’s the question that coaches ask themselves every day—what should they coach today? What should they train today? What should they focus on today? That’s what I’m most excited about and what’s going to make the biggest difference. Not just saving coaches time through Hudl Assist or through our platform, but saving them time and making their practices more efficient, more focused, more on point—we can do that with data and video.”

Vinci advises coaches to mainly focus on their side of the net when it comes to stats, rather than study opponent tendencies. He recommends keeping an eye on reception, serving, side-out percentages and first-ball-out percentages.

Hitting efficiency is also always on Vinci’s radar. This number tells a more complete story than simply looking at kills and errors. By calculating (kills-errors)/attempts, hitting efficiency paints a more effective picture of a player’s performance.

“It’s, ‘How many points am I scoring per swing?’” Vinci said. “It’s an average of how many points I’m scoring every time I take a swing. The higher that number is, the more I’m going to score and the more I’m going to win.”

Many of these stats can be tracked on paper, but they’re taken to another level when linked with video. Statistics are useful on the surface, but the story behind each number is more telling—that’s where video comes in.

“We’re talking about the competitive level of sport where you can just learn and improve so fast,” Vinci said. “You’re learning so much. Learning by seeing is just another level of learning.”

“Everybody says a picture is worth 1,000 words. I’ll say a video is worth a million words. That is a big, big thing.”

To learn more about how stats and video give teams an edge, check out our free eBook.


How to Boost Team Morale Off the Court

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Being a coach is much more than teaching proper volleyball techniques. See how to stay connected and show compassion to players during uncertain times.

When their playing days are over, athletes aren’t going to remember the box scores or hitting percentages. They’ll recognize who was there for them during the most vulnerable times of their lives. Here are a few tips for keeping team morale high from a distance.

Check in on your team

Your players’ health and well-being should always be a priority, but especially in times of crisis and isolation. Set a reminder in your calendar to reach out to them. Ask how they’re doing physically and mentally and let them know how important they are to you.

Avoid phrases like “you’re a hard worker” or “you’ve been a great asset.” Instead, choose affirmations that are specific to who they are and the unique impact they have on your team. “I love the way you cheer for your teammates,” and “I appreciate how you always take the extra time to shag balls between drills,” are great examples.

Create space for socializing

While virtual position training and at-home workouts are important, your players are probably missing the casual conversations and team time. Facilitate these by hosting coffee or tea breaks for your players to get together and talk about life outside of volleyball.

Have fun together

By now, you’ve probably seen the team pepper challenge on platforms like YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. But there are so many other ways to keep your team connected and break up the monotony. At VCNebraska, teams made their own versions of popular songs and got to know each other better through virtual talent shows.

You can also challenge players to come up with the best trick shot. Or host a Netflix watch party. No matter what you decide, just remember that teams with chemistry off the court, perform better on it.

Send a care package

If your budget allows, send players something to let them know you’re thinking about them. Tailor it to each individual’s interests and hobbies, or keep it general with a mix of fun and useful trinkets. Items like hand sanitizer (if you can find it), masks, snacks, scrunchies and card games are all great contenders.

Or send a handwritten note to let them know you care.

“I sent each of my players a handwritten note to not only let them know that I was thinking of them, but to encourage them as they were about to head into their finals week. Each note made them feel special and they know that I care for them as more than just volleyball players,” said Ruth McGolpin, head volleyball coach at Westmont College (Calif.).

Celebrate your players

Last but not least, keep everyone focused on the positive by celebrating wins at the team and individual level. Create highlights of your team’s best moments or make one for each player to applaud their successes. This might sound time-consuming, but it’s a breeze with Hudl’s highlight tools.

Not all celebrations are about in-game moments. You can also throw a virtual party or award night to recognize your team. If you have the budget, send pizza or another treat to your players’ homes so it feels like an end-of-season banquet. Create the awards you normally would and play that highlight reel you made. Most importantly, enjoy being together and give your players a small sense of normalcy.