Quick preface: these rankings are built on numbers and nothing else - and players are more than numbers. I hope these "honors" can spark conversation, aid some VT diehards in their arguments, and just make folks curious about analytics in general. Please take these rankings with a grain of salt and the solace that numbers cannot capture the entire value a player brings to the court - and therefore these awards are inherently flawed. But I still think they're interesting, hence, I have posted them.
But without any further ado...
Player of the Year:
Hilir Henno - UC Irvine, Outside Hitter
Freshman of the Year:
Daniel Fabikovic - Loyola Chicago, Outside Hitter
1st Team
Cameron Thorne - Grand Canyon - Middle
Curtis Raines - Charleston - Libero
Dan Mangun - Loyola Chicago - Setter
Daniel Fabikovic - Loyola Chicago - Outside
Donovan Constable - CSUN - Setter
Ethan Watson - Pepperdine - Middle
Guilherme Voss - Hawai'i - Middle
Hilir Henno - UC Irvine - Outside
Ido David - UCLA - Opposite
Jacob Pasteur - Ohio State - Outside
Jacob Reilly - Concordia Irvine - Libero
Jarrett Anderson - Grand Canyon - Opposite
John Kerr - Penn State - Opposite
Lazar Bouchkov - Long Beach State - Middle
Merrick McHenry - UCLA - Middle
Ryan Merk - Penn State - Libero
Sotiris Siapanis - Long Beach State - Outside
Spyros Chakas - Hawai'i - Outside
Tread Rosenthal - Hawai'i - Setter
2nd Team
Andrew Rowan - UCLA - Setter
Camden Gianni - Grand Canyon - Outside
Cameron Milligan - Daemen - Outside
Cooper Robinson - UCLA - Outside
Ethan Champlin - UCLA - Outside
Ethan Smith - Harvard - Middle
Grant Sloane - UCLA - Opposite
Jackson Fife - BYU - Libero
Jaden Glenn - UC Santa Barbara - Libero
Michael Wright - Ohio State - Setter
Nathan Zini - Saint Francis - Opposite
Ondrej Arabasz - Daemen - Middle
Parker Van Buren - Loyola Chicago - Opposite
Patrick Rogers - Ball State - Outside
Sean Califf - Daemen - Setter
Sean McQuiggan - UCLA - Middle
Simon Torwie - Long Beach State - Middle
Tristan Whitfield - Princeton - Middle
Yadiel Diaz - McKendree - Libero
Honorable Mention
Alaka'i Todd - Hawai'i - Opposite
Alejandro Leon - Belmont Abbey - Libero
Alex Mrkalj - Pepperdine - Outside
Brett Sheward - UC Irvine - Setter
Clarke Godbold - Long Beach State - Outside
Connor Campbell - UC Irvine - Middle
'Eleu Choy - Hawai'i - Libero
Geste Bianchi - UC Santa Barbara - Opposite
Ian Schuller - Lindenwood - Opposite
JJ Sowa - Loyola Chicago - Libero
Keoni Thiim - Hawai'i - Outside
Kevin Schuele - McKendree - Outside
Kurt Nusterer - Hawai'i - Middle
Kyle Hobus - CSUN - Outside
Mason Briggs - Long Beach State - Libero
Matt Gentry - Lincoln Memorial - Middle
Matthew Staskunas - Belmont Abbey - Opposite
Michael Valenzi - Penn State - Outside
Nathan Harlan - Long Beach State - Outside
Nic Slight - Grand Canyon - Setter
Nicodemus Meyer - Loyola Chicago - Middle
Omar Hoyos - George Mason - Outside
Paul Stommel - Charleston - Setter
Rico Wardlow - Grand Canyon - Middle
Ryan Parker - Saint Francis - Setter
Sam Lane - Saint Francis - Middle
Shawn Baggs - Lewis - Middle
Skyler Varga - Long Beach State - Opposite
Tate Colebaugh - Lincoln Memorial - Libero
Teon Taylor - BYU - Middle
Tinaishe Ndavazocheva - Ball State - Outside
Tobey Ezeonu - Penn State - Middle
Tommy Poole - Ohio State - Libero
Tyler Poulsen - McKendree - Setter
Wes Smith - USC - Middle
Will Rottman - Stanford - Outside
Yotam Briger - Concordia Irvine - Setter
Zach Schneider - Daemen - Opposite
If you've made it this far, I appreciate you.
The methodology for this list is relatively straightforward:
- Look at how often each position group performs each fundamental skill to find the weight (e.g. Outsides on average spend 25% of their touches on Reception)
- Look at how well each player performs in each skill to find the value-add (e.g. Siapanis, +0.059 on Reception)
- Multiple (Weight x Value-Add) for each skill and then add them all together (e.g. 0.25*0.059 + serve_weight*serve_valueadd + ... = Weighted Impact)
- The result is the Weighted Impact per Touch
Position weights are as follows.
- Outsides; 19% Serve - 25% Receive, 36% Attack, 12% Block, 10% Dig
- Middles; 22% Serve - 32% Attack - 44% Block
- Opposites; 25% Serve - 43% Attack - 20% Block - 12% Dig
- Setters; 12% Serve - 67% Set - 3% Attack - 10% Block - 8% Dig
- Liberos; 50% Receive - 13% Set - 37% Dig
For example, Hilir Henno of UC Irvine:
- 0.053*0.19 + 0.015*0.25 + 0.174*0.36 + 0.020*0.12 + 0.007*0.10 = 0.080 Weighted Impact per Touch
The goal is that this highlights players who play the position at the highest level. If you only focused on cumulative value added (rather than this weighted version), you can end up featuring average players on weak teams who carry a larger load, but aren't necessarily a top performer at their position.
If you're curious about the MVP Value, this is the Total Value from all touches they accumulated, divided by the number of sets they played in. This gives more weight to total contribution on a given team, like Henno with Irvine, Rottman with Stanford, Chakas with Hawai'i, or Fabikovic with Loyola - guys who carry a larger load often rise to the top in this metric. This data point is how I selected Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year.
You are more than welcome to disagree with my methodology and thus inherently with my lists in general. But again, these are only to help spark discussion and hopefully propel the volleyball analytics conversation in a positive direction.