Washington's impressive stats: do they matter?

Five of the nation's top six teams this week are members of the Pac-12 … and a sixth—#15 Oregon—is the only Pac-12 team without a conference loss. There can be little argument which league is the nation's best.

It bears noting, then, that Washington leads the Pac-12 in three crucial statistical categories: Best offensive hitting percentage (.303); lowest opponent hitting percentage (.115), and most service aces per set (2.06). UW is second in the league in most blocks per set (3.04). The aces per set is tops in the entire nation (320 Division 1 schools); the offensive hitting percentage is second best (trailing only Michigan State), and the blocking stat is sixth in the nation. The NCAA does not report lowest opponent hitting percentage.

So, are these numbers important? And what do they mean?

UW leads the nation in service aces even though none of its primary servers employs a powerful jump serve. All six Washington servers rely on jump floats—driving the opponents’ passers deep into the corners with knuckleballs that refuse to drop. It requires hours of practice, exceptional focus and plenty of patience. Obviously, it works.

Being tops in both offensive and defensive hitting means, more than anything, that a team is committing few unforced errors, while forcing its opponent into poor (diggable) shots or errors of their own. In other words, disciplined volleyball. There is a direct correlation to teams at the top in these two categories and teams with a lot of wins.

I wonder, however, whether one reason for Washington’s early success is the unpredictability of its offense. When you play against Stanford, you know Rachel Williams will get more than a third of the Cardinal sets. Tarah Murrey takes more than a third of Cal’s swings. USC’s Alex Jupiter, Oregon’s Alaina Bergma and UCLA’s Rachael Kidder are equally dominant. When a setter has a choice, she’ll choose her big gun.

The team with the least predictable primary target is Washington. Setter Evan Sanders sets Krista Vansant just 26% of the time … the lowest share of team attempts of any top hitter in the conference [see chart, below.] Kylin Muñoz gets 24% of the attempts, and Bianca Rowland (who does not play the back row) gets 15%.

Does this analysis help? Maybe not. Consider that the team with the second-best balance is Utah, which also leads the league in blocking. Yet, the Utes are near the conference bottom in the standings. Utah is just average in aces, and fairly lousy in both offensive and defensive hitting percentage, two areas where Washington excels.

In my opinion, Washington’s unpredictability is part of—though not key to—the Huskies’ fast start. It could be an even bigger factor, however, when and if Sanders finds a way to get the ball more often to Summer Ross, currently attempting just 13% of Washington’s attacks.

What do you think?

Pac-12: Share of team’s total attacks, as of 9/28/11
RANK	SHARE	PLAYER	SCHOOL
1.	36.5	Meagan Ganzer	WSU
2.	36.1	Kerra Schroeder	Colo
3.	34.3	Rachel Williams	Stanford
4.	31.9	Ashley Kastl	ASU
5.	31.7	Tarah Murrey	Cal
6.	31.3	Madison Kingdon	UA
7.	30.7	Camille Saxton	OSU
8.	30.4	Alex Jupiter	USC
9.	29.8	Alaina Bergsma	UO
10.	29.1	Rachael Kidder	UCLA
11.	27.2	Morgan Odale	Utah
12.	27.1	Chelsey Schofield	Utah
13.	26.3	Krista Vansant	UW
14.	24.8	Danica Mendivil	ASU
15.	24.4	Kylin Muñoz	UW
16.	23.1	Katherine Fischer	UO
17.	20.7	Tabi Love	UCLA
18.	20.5	Katie Fuller	USC
19.	19.4	Courtney Karst	UA
20.	19.0	Dre Shaw	OSU
21.	19.0	Rachel Todorovich	WSU
22.	18.4	Sam Wopat	Stanford
23.	17.3	Erin Redd	Utah
24.	16.6	Cursty Jackson	UA
25.	15.5	Bianca Rowland	UW
26.	15.2	Kelly Reeves	UCLA
27.	15.1	Jaicee Harris	WSU
28.	15.0	Adrienne Gehan	Cal
29.	14.7	Arica Nassar	OSU
30.	14.6	Lydia Bai	Stanford
31.	14.5	Nikki Lindow	Colo
32.	14.4	Lauren Williams	USC
33.	14.3	Ariana Williams	UO
34.	14.0	Nora Tuioti-Mariner	ASU
35.	13.1	Shannon Hawari	Cal
36.	13.1	Summer Ross	UW