Who’d a thunk it? Who’d a thunk that a brainstorming session with Mike Hebert at Minnesota would turn into a new statistic for volleyball? Really, it’s an old statistic with a positive spin, but it makes sense to players. It’s hard to teach the negative and easy to teach the positive. Thus came ‘In Play Efficiency’ or I.P.E. You can learn more about it on an old blog post: What is IPE? Continue Reading

It’s a cold rainy Saturday here in the North. I’ve got some time indoors to kill, so I decided to play armchair coach today. I like that the AVP/BVB Info is posting stats per set online. I can further breakdown and analyze your game. Here are my thoughts based on the stats… Continue Reading

I.P.E. is an acronym for In Play Efficiency. It is simply the opposite of hitting error percentage (IPE = 1 – error %). It’s putting a positive spin on hitting errors. Many coaches tell players, “Don’t make hitting errors”; this focuses on the negative. Instead, IPE focuses on the positive and encourages players to keep the ball in play. For example, Penn State’s Hitting Error % for 2008 was .126. This roughly equates to 1.3 hitting errors for every 10 attempts. The positive spin on Penn State’s error % or what we consider “IPE” is .874 (1 – 0.126). This means for every 10 attempts, 8.7 swings were in the court. IPE is a positive hitting goal for any team. A player can easily recognize an IPE goal of .900 or simply to keep 9 out of 10 attempts in play. An
attainable outcome goal a player can work towards. Continue Reading