Nerdly Nebraska.

2022-2023 HuskerGeek Ratings Leaders

Sport School Rating
ViPR D1 Volleyball Texas 1,730.6611
BPR D1 NCAAWBB South Carolina 0.7972

Football georgia 11.6118
Men's Basketball houston 9.1538
Women's Basketball south carolina 11.6166
Baseball lsu 10.0526
Softball oklahoma 13.2383
Ice Hockey minnesota 9.2507
Men's Lacrosse notre dame 8.2057
Women's Lacrosse syracuse 9.7375
Men's Soccer kentucky 8.7687
Women's Soccer ucla 11.0741
Men's Volleyball ucla 11.2265
Women's Volleyball texas 12.4762
Field Hockey north carolina 10.0384

BPR NCAA Women's Basketball Ratings

Division 1

Rnk. Team Conference
1st South Carolina SEC
2nd Stanford Pac-12
3rd UConn Big East
4th LSU SEC
5th Indiana Big Ten
6th Iowa Big Ten
7th Virginia Tech ACC
8th Texas Big 12
9th Utah Pac-12
10th Duke ACC
-- Expand Division 1 --

Division 2

Rnk. Team Conference
1st Ashland G-MAC
2nd Grand Valley St. GLIAC
3rd Minn. Duluth NSIC
4th Minnesota St. NSIC
5th Neb.-Kearney Mid-America Intercollegiate
6th Drury GLVC
7th Tampa Sunshine State
8th Mo. Southern St. Mid-America Intercollegiate
9th Augustana (SD) NSIC
10th Central Mo. Mid-America Intercollegiate
-- Expand Division 2 --

Division 3

Rnk. Team Conference
1st NYU UAA
2nd Gust. Adolphus MIAC
3rd Chris. Newport C2C
4th Hope Michigan Intercol. Ath. Assn.
5th Transylvania HCAC
6th Scranton Landmark
7th Smith NEWMAC
8th Loras American Rivers
9th Babson NEWMAC
10th Wis.-Whitewater WIAC
-- Expand Division 3 --

ViPR NCAA Volleyball Ratings

Division 1

Rnk. Team Conference
1st Texas Big 12
2nd Nebraska Big Ten
3rd Wisconsin Big Ten
4th Louisville ACC
5th Stanford Pac-12
6th Oregon Pac-12
7th Minnesota Big Ten
8th Ohio St. Big Ten
9th San Diego WCC
10th Pittsburgh ACC

Division 1 Standouts

Award Name Team
POY
AOY
SOY
DPOY
-- Expand Division 1 --

Division 2

Rnk. Team Conference
1st Wayne St. (NE) NSIC
2nd Alas. Anchorage Great Northwest
3rd Concordia-St. Paul NSIC
4th MSU Denver RMAC
5th West Tex. A&M Lone Star
6th Western Wash. Great Northwest
7th Tampa Sunshine State
8th St. Cloud St. NSIC
9th Colorado Mesa RMAC
10th Northwest Mo. St. Mid-America Intercollegiate

Division 2 Standouts

Award Name Team
POY
AOY
SOY
DPOY
-- Expand Division 2 --

Division 3

Rnk. Team Conference
1st Claremont-M-S SCIAC
2nd Juniata Landmark
3rd Trinity (TX) SCAC
4th Transylvania HCAC
5th Calvin Michigan Intercol. Ath. Assn.
6th Berry SAA
7th Wis.-Whitewater WIAC
8th Emory UAA
9th Northwestern-St. Paul UMAC
10th Wittenberg NCAC

Division 3 Standouts

Award Name Team
POY
AOY
SOY
DPOY
-- Expand Division 3 --

Advanced Rate Statistics for NCAA Women’s Volleyball

Or Why Per Set Statistics are Bullsh*t

Pop quiz.

Question 1: How many points is a set in NCAA Division 1 Volleyball?

If you said twenty-five, you are wrong. If you said twenty-five except in a fifth set when it is only fifteen, you are wrong.  If you said it depends, then congratulations you have won the game.

Question 2: Name each team that corresponds to the primary or secondary color referenced in the following table.

Hint: These figures are the average points per set for each Big Ten team last season.

Team Points Per Set
Red 41.12
Blue 42.49
Red 42.50
Red 42.87
Red 42.94
Orange 43.06
Purple 43.19
Yellow 43.23
Red 43.43
Red 43.51
Yellow 43.88
Green 43.96
Red 43.97
Blue 44.29

Answers are at the bottom.

This presents a significant issue when it comes to doing rate statistics.   A four kill per set player at 41.12 points per set would average more than 4.3 kps if they had the same kill rate and played for the last team in the table averaging 44.29 points per set.  A quick look at the current KPS table on NCAA Stats says that’s the difference between being 57th and 34th.  A significant difference.  Additionally, because the gap will widen linearly as the initial numbers grow, the result is that the players at the very top of the chart can be misrepresented to the highest degree.  That’s simply unacceptable when trying to use a statistic to formulate any significant statistical argument.

And that’s not even the worst example I could come up with.

Per Set statistics are meaningless without additional context.  The context that a person would need to supply to make those statistics worthwhile is tedious and time consuming to track and calculate.   This results in volleyball fans and the media continually relying on and relaying statistics that in reality mean very little.

It needs to change, and that’s the purpose of this article and a couple of pages that I’ve now added to the site.  While per set statistics are exceptionally flawed, points are not.  In fact, points applied in the right way can be exceptionally accurate when calculating a rate statistic.

Here are the top ten players on the current(9/15/2018) stats.ncaa.org KPS leaders table.

NCAA Volleyball D1 KPS Leaders 9-15-2018

Here is the same list, but instead of per set, the rates are per point in each team’s games.

Kills Per 100 Points

Rk. Name Team KPP
1 13.8140
2 12.8452
3 11.5678
4 11.4781
5 10.9756
6 10.9277
7 10.8782
8 10.8467
9 10.7735
10 10.6240

There are differences and there can be extreme differences. In fact, with many of the common statistics volleyball fans and the media use, using points is inherently flawed.  When measuring kill rates for players, total points in a match has an inherent flaw.  Specifically, during any match there will inevitably be points wher a player who plays for all rotations will still have no chance to get a kill, namely aces and service errors.

AN: There are caveats beyond this as well. Not every player plays six rotations and there are points beyond aces and service errors during which a player would also by definition not have a chance to get a kill. Rotational errors are the specific issue in this case because I did not have the foresight to track them efficiently in my database and will need to do some significant redesign before I can efficiently account for those points.

Beyond using total points for a rate, simple subtraction can be used measure the rate at which a player gets a kill for every point in play.

This is the table for the statistic named Kills per Point-In-Play.  Original name, I know.

Kills Per 100 Points In Play

Rk. Name Team KPIP
1 16.6556
2 14.8148
3 13.5862
4 13.3621
5 13.2583
6 13.1679
7 12.9555
8 12.6316
9 12.6050
10 12.5421

It’s not even the same list as the original per point list.  While this approach is not currently perfect, it’s still much better than using per set because the denominator of the statistic being calculated means the same thing across all players.  The context per point statistics provide is important because without it volleyball statistics are very nearly meaningless.  An instance of “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” if you will.  Making even incremental progress toward better understanding and knowledge is important.

Measuring virtually every statistic by points played improves it drastically, but Aces and Service Errors per set make the least sense as a statistic.  It is entirely possible to play a set in which a primary server will not serve during the set.  In fact, in fifth sets, it actually isn”t all that rare.  Luckily, NCAA Play-By-Play pages happen to track exactly who serves each point, a fortunate thing in this instance because those pages can be used to get per serve rates for aces, service errors, and service points.

AN: This(A primary server not getting the opportunity to serve.) actually happened to Lauren Stivrins in Set 3 of the Nebraska vs Missouri State less than three hours after I saved my latest draft of this article. Yeah, that happened.

These statistics and more have been made available on each team page as well as Division and Conference leaders.  The leaders are available using the “View Complete Advanced Statistics Leaders” link on each division or conference page.

And that friends, is why per set statistics are bullsh*t.

Answer Key

Top to Bottom: Rutgers, Penn State, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Northwestern, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Purdue, Michigan State, Ohio State, Michigan

The Best This Year

These are the current all sport rankings for the school year of 2023-2024.
Rk. Team Sport Record MOV DOM ELO EFF SYN PTS ALL
1st west virginia st Women's Basketball 1-0-0 16.9851 15.7082 16.2837 16.6221 16.5673 24.1291 7.1582
2nd oklahoma Softball 25-1-0 13.6147 13.3790 12.6246 13.6144 13.2383 14.9206 10.8953
3rd texas Women's Volleyball 28-1-0 12.5091 12.5000 12.5199 12.5086 12.4762 10.0276 14.8924
4th tennessee Softball 23-1-0 11.9497 12.0648 11.5878 11.9496 11.9096 12.2948 10.2691
5th south carolina Women's Basketball 36-0-0 11.1323 11.3143 12.6358 11.1310 11.6166 10.2345 10.2074
6th georgia Football 15-0-0 11.2834 11.2745 12.0946 11.2885 11.6118 10.4813 9.3662
7th louisville Women's Volleyball 31-3-0 11.4437 11.4785 11.5185 11.4436 11.4505 10.6468 11.8196
8th nichols Men's Lacrosse 1-0-0 11.4558 12.2493 10.2889 11.4518 11.4097 5.3210 16.9398
9th ucla Men's Volleyball 21-2-0 11.2784 11.2637 11.1945 11.2788 11.2265 8.3575 11.4396
10th ucla Women's Soccer 22-2-1 9.3742 11.2847 11.8341 9.3286 11.0741 2.9735 1.2367
11th stanford Women's Volleyball 27-5-0 11.0200 11.0170 11.0612 11.0200 11.0055 10.6266 10.9239
12th oklahoma st Softball 26-2-0 10.3026 11.0321 11.4481 10.3025 10.9850 11.3162 8.2225
13th stanford Softball 27-3-0 10.0803 10.9987 11.3692 10.0800 10.8809 7.8684 10.8688
14th wisconsin Women's Volleyball 28-4-0 10.8831 10.8543 10.8365 10.8830 10.8361 10.4978 10.7842
15th quincy Men's Lacrosse 1-0-0 13.8541 11.0400 7.0370 13.8378 10.7596 19.4489 4.7430
16th florida st Women's Soccer 16-3-3 9.2038 10.8989 11.3462 9.2699 10.7185 3.4104 0.7656
17th san diego Women's Volleyball 31-2-0 10.6789 10.7393 10.8221 10.6788 10.7175 10.1387 10.7804
18th north carolina Women's Soccer 21-5-1 8.9632 10.9034 11.3555 9.0898 10.6461 3.2303 0.8664
19th ucla Softball 28-4-0 10.1592 10.5690 10.8206 10.1591 10.5622 9.6436 9.4435
20th pittsburgh Women's Volleyball 31-4-0 10.5590 10.5793 10.6183 10.5590 10.5606 10.1857 10.4625
21st nebraska Women's Volleyball 26-6-0 10.5414 10.5404 10.4373 10.5413 10.4919 9.6119 11.1271
22nd oregon Women's Volleyball 26-6-0 10.2224 10.2524 10.3026 10.2224 10.2349 10.5775 9.2512
23rd tba Women's Basketball 1-0-0 9.0453 9.2168 13.2186 9.0411 10.1386 9.4375 7.1851
24th lsu Baseball 21-3-0 9.6599 10.3366 9.9683 9.6595 10.0526 10.3535 7.8215
25th north carolina Field Hockey 20-0-0 9.3177 10.1173 10.5104 9.3176 10.0384 10.7256 7.4616
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