9th Annual SFA VolleyBlog.net All Conference Teams

FOR UPDATES AND REACTIONS TO OFFICIAL LISTS....SCOLL TO THE BOTTOM

If you scroll to the picks, argue with me and don't read the following paragraphs and bullets then don't expect me to listen to you for very long.

·        This list was published before the official All-Southland Conference teams.  This was published on Monday, November 13.  The conference released the official lists on Wednesday, November 15 (edit:  Tuesday, November 14.. they released it a day earlier!).

·        I don't do this the way the conference does.  I have claimed for years - staunchly - that coaches have WAY too much control over the official lists.  Get a coach or SID to explain to you how they vote, then go read the tiebreaker rules for conference tournament seeding, then ask me for a syllabus to an advanced calculus class and you decide for yourself which procedures are most unduly complex.

·        I view these as individual awards, not team awards.  I outright reject the reasoning that the order of the standings should dictate how many picks should show up on these lists or that the Player of the Year, Setter of the Year, Coach of the Year, etc. HAVE TO or SHOULD come from the best teams.  If you want to see what a team award looks like, click here or here.  We are honoring INDIVIDUALS here.

·        I am a numbers person.  I teach statistics for a living.  I take notes, talk to coaches, SID's, use my impressions when SFA plays opponents, but in the end we here at the blog live my one mantra:  In God We Trust.  All Others Bring Data.  Numbers matter.. a lot. If you don't like statistical analysis in sports, then your picks won't look anything like mine. I'm happy to defend my reasoning.  Just know you are going to get numbers, if you ask.

And now for the stuff that  I have written for 8 straight years but still need you to know if you are reading this:

Like in previous years, I suspect I will periodically comment on this article over the next week.  People love to debate this stuff and I'm fine with that.  After all, trying to decide who to honor is a noble pursuit and I can appreciate the passion that other fans have for their picks and reasons.  I will indicate updates at the bottom of the post with boldface time stamps.  

Recall,  I actually pick "teams". The conference does not do this. Typically, the conference puts 12 girls on the first team, six girls on the 2nd team and has 6 to 9 girls listed as honorable mention for a total of 24 to 27 girls recognized. I will have three teams of seven for 21 girls honored and then a list of the players I considered for the lists and "just missed".

As I have said each of the last eight years: "There are seven starters each night for any particular team, so we will pick seven girls per team. Each team is required to have a setter, libero, two middle blockers, two hitters and a seventh player that can either be MB or OH."

2017 SFA VolleyBlog.net All-Southland Conference Teams and Awards:

First Team:

RS Samantha Anderson, UCA

OH Haley Coleman, SFA

OH Bailey Banks, HBU

MB Taylor Cunningham, SHSU

MB Blair Gillard, HBU

S Kristyn Nicholson, AMCC

L Channing Burleson, NSU

Second Team:

OH Brittany Gilpin, AMCC

OH Jessica Wooten, HBU

RS Danae Daron, SFA

MB Kaitlyn Grice, UNO

MB Megan Nash, UCA

S Elizabeth Armstrong, UCA

L Lexus Cain, SFA

Third Team:

OH Reagan Rogers, NSU

OH Jordyn Vaughn, Sam Houston

OH Brooke White, Sam Houston

MB Shanna Spree, McNeese

MB Makenzee Hanna, SFA

S Ann Hollas, SFA

L Angela McGownd, McNeese

Just Missed (in order of position played):  OH Tomar Thomas (LU), OH Abbie Harry (UCA), OH Corin Evans (SFA), OH Autumn Lockley (UIW), OH Keegan Nelms (McNeese), MB Lauren Walker (ACU), MB Lorin McNeil (ACU), Kayla Davenport (HBU), MB Sarea Alexander (UIW), S Jaclyn Ward (Sam Houston), L Madison Woods (AMCC), RS Madison Green (AMCC)

Player of the Year:  Samantha Anderson, UCA

Setter of the Year:  Kristyn Nicholson, AMCC

Libero of the Year:  Channing Burleson, NSU

Newcomer of the Year: No Pick

Freshman of the Year:  Lorin McNeil, ACU

Coach of the Year:  Debbie Humphreys, SFA

Yes, I agonized over my Player of the Year pick.  Yes, I almost just picked co-Players of the year and bailed out.  Yes, I have a defense of picking a three rotation player for the honor.  Yes, the conference has had three rotation players win the award before.  Yes, this year was weird compared to others in recent memory.  All of this is going to be addressed in an update tomorrow.

In my opinion, the following four players are candidates for 2017 Player of the Year:  Anderson, Coleman, Nicholson and Banks.  If I were voting the way the coaches do (which again, is really bizarre) my ballot at the top would be:

1. Anderson, UCA

2. Coleman, SFA

3. Nicholson, AMCC

4. Banks, HBU

5. Gilpin, AMCC

..and no, I don't see those five as terribly far apart.

_____________________________________________________________

UPDATES AND REACTIONS

Update:  Tuesday, November 14 11 PM:

The official SLC All-Conference lists got released a day earlier than normal.  For the third straight year, I am super impressed with the voters.  I thought the official choices were outstanding and the fact that the conference as a whole picked Anderson will reduce my line of defense that I had planned for this space.  Instead, let me mention a few things that came to mind late last night and during the day today as I contemplated things, talked to people around the league and read social media and emails:

• Just to be 100% clear:  I ALWAYS post my lists AFTER the league has finished voting and BEFORE the league announces the official winners.  Someone - in a very erroneous, yet flattering way suggested that I might have influenced the actual voting.  My response to that is:  "As If".  I do discuss this stuff with the folks at SFA and I do keep in regular contact with various coaches and SID's, but I can assure you, I never release my lists to coaches/SID's before they are printed here and I laugh at the postulate that I would influence a coach making picks.  That just isn't going to happen.  But, just to be above board, I wait until the voting is closed before I post.  The voting closed Monday at Noon.  I posted my lists Monday at 10 PM.

• All 18 of the official first and second teamers honored by the conference made my top 3 teams. That's the first time that has ever happened.  Usually there are one or two major differences that I get to rant about in follow-up posts.  I feel cheated that I don't get that chance.  Hahahaha. (Jessica Pancratz, 2012, anyone??)  In fact, I call this the "Pancratz Principle" when I talk about it with others... I don't get to apply the Pancratz Principle in 2017 due to all the agreement.

• The conference top 5 were my top 5... just in a different order.

• Blair Gillard should be higher on the official lists.  Then again, everyone knows I am President of the Blair Gillard Fan Club, so I am bound and sworn to vote for her for first team.

• Either Brooke White should be higher or Reagan Rogers and Jordyn Vaughn should be lower on the official lists.  Their stats show differences but if you proportionally weigh kills per set, attack percentage, digs per set, blocks per set and even factor in team strength (which I don't but I am led to believe most do), then their weighted contributions are basically the same.  I don't get the separation at all.  They are all great players, but I think people get a little carried away and overweight kills per set.  I'm giving away a post I am going to write later in the week, but let me tell you that the average starting outside (left side) hitter in the league hit .178 this year.  Rogers hit .160, Vaughn hit .177 and White hit .182.  Hmmmmmm.

• By the way, for the OH's.. I weigh offense at roughly 75% of the "score" and defense 25% of the "score".  Something close to that is what I mean by "proportionally weigh" in the paragraph above.

• The league once again is slightly biased against good players making the official lists from middle-to-end-of-the-pack teams .  Kaitlyn Grice put up numbers worth of better than Honorable Mention.  We, as a conference, need to stop this trend.  Makenzee Hanna is literally one of my favorite people and I am thrilled she got recognized on the 2nd team, but fair is fair:  Grice is the only MB is the conference to finish in the Top 6 at her position in kills per set, attack percentage and blocks per set.  Grice and Hanna had the same attack percentage.  Grice was 2nd in blocks per set for all MB's. Hanna was tied for 9th.  Grice was 6th in kills per set for all MB's.  Hanna was 10th.  Hanna was two slots from making first team and Grice didn't make either.  Conclusion:  Team Bias.  Once we figure out these aren't team awards we will have come a long way in improving the process.

• Fact you didn't know until now:  Every Southland player that finished in the Top 40 in the NATION in a "per set" statistic that goes along with their position got some sort of honor on the official lists...... except libero Angela McGownd of McNeese.  Don't worry McGownd.. I've got your back.

• I even got the "No Pick" right.  I, of course, wasn't aware - as the conference announced - that no newcomer had been nominated on the ballot at any school.  Then again, if we didn't have "nominations" it would guarantee that someone would win the award.  I didn't make a pick because I wasn't sure if certain players were eligible or not based on their transfer status.  Official voters are not allowed to vote for anyone they please.  Instead, they must vote only for the players than are nominated by head coaches.  This ridiculousness is also part of the "Pancratz Principle".

• You don't have to believe me, but on my original draft of the lists I had Hannah Brister of Northwestern State as my Freshman of the Year.  Sunday night, I looked at all the freshman again and changed it to Lorin McNeil in the final draft.  The other person I strongly considered was libero Madelyn Miller of UIW.

• More coming on this sort of stuff later.. but you probably know that OH's have higher kill per set numbers on average than right sides.  You probably also know the RS's have higher attack percentages on average than 6-rotation outsides.  What if I told you that I took all the data from both positions this year and created a correspondence between the two so that you could "adjust" for these facts... so that you could compare a RS to a 6-rotation outside on these two stats?  Haley Coleman's .268 is truly outstanding for a 6-rotation outside.  But, if you adjust Samantha Anderson's .338 and translate it down to the "OH attack percentage scale".. you know what you get?  This year .338 as a RS translates to .266 as an OH.  That says that Anderson's .338 is actually JUST AS REMARKABLE as Coleman's .268.  Now, if you scale Anderson's kills per set number of 3.44 up to the "OH kills per set scale", you get 4.16, which would EASILY lead the league.  Anderson's kills per set number is far more remarkable than Coleman's attack percentage when adjusting for position played. Not to mention Anderson led her position in all of blocks per set, kills per set, and attack percentage.  Not to mention Anderson was the only player in the league to finish in the Top 10 in both attack percentageand kills per set.  Not to mention Anderson was the only non-MB to finish in the Top 10 in blocks per set in conference only matches.

• For those that might have picked Bailey Banks over both Anderson and Coleman... you have a good case for sure.  Here's one that makes Banks shine over those two... if you define a "bad match" as 8 or fewer total points and a "great match" as 16 or more total points, then here's the tally: Bad Matches: Banks 4, Anderson 5, Coleman 7.  Great Matches: Banks 14 (!!!), Anderson 9, Coleman 6.

Sam Houston and SFA: Two Different Formulas

A lot has been made of SFA's balanced offense this year as the 'Jacks currently have amassed 24 wins, half of those in conference play.  SFA will earn of the top seeds in this years' Southland Conference Tournament and the same is likely to be said of the rival Bearkats from Sam Houston.  But these two teams couldn't be built more differently, especially on offense and that's what we are going to take a look at today.

To prepare for this post, I scanned the statistics of all 13 Southland Conference clubs and started by writing down the Top 5 kill leaders on each team.  Then, I computed percentage of kills that each of these players were responsible for on their respective teams.  In this way, we can easily find out which teams depend the most on just two or three attackers and which teams tend to spread the offense around a bit more.  Let's get right to the results:

First, let's look at the role of the primary attacker.  The average team leader in kills in the Southland Conference is responsible for 23.8% of her team's terminations.  Here's how Sam Houston's leader (Jordan Vaughn) and SFA's kill leader (Haley Coleman) stack up in the ranks of percent of kills for their team:

Percentage of Team Total Kills By Kill Leader:

1. Vaughn, Sam Houston, 30.5%

2. Rogers, Northwestern State, 28.4%

3. Banks, Houston Baptist, 27.6%

...

12. Haley Coleman, SFA, 20.0%

Southland Average: 23.8%

This immediately points out the fact that SFA is not anywhere near as reliant on Coleman as Sam Houston is on Vaughn.  This may be obvious to you, but it's our first piece of evidence - and a big one - that SFA's offense is truly spread around this year.  Looking at some numbers a different, way, Vaughn averages 11.3 attacks per set compared to Coleman's 8.3.  That's a full three opportunities per set higher for Vaughn which equates to over 10 per match on average.  For SFA, those extra 10-12 balls per match are distributed to other players.  Let this soak in a minute before we move on. SFA is tops in the league in attack percentage and has been in the top third in the conference in kills per set all season long by not relying on a single attacker.

But, we often talk about pin hitters (plural) as carrying a heavy load, so what happens when we expand the percentages above to include the top duos in the conference in terms of workload.  As you see below, the story doesn't really change.  In fact, it accents even more how heavily Sam Houston depends on fewer attackers than anyone in the league.

Percentage of Team Total Kills By Top Two Kill Leaders:

1. Vaughn and White, Sam Houston, 56.8%

2. Banks and Wooten, Houston Baptist, 50.3%

3. Rogers and Brister, Northwestern State, 46.1%

...

10. Coleman and Daron, SFA, 38.2%

Southland Average: 42.9%

There are lots of interesting things in this leaderboard as well.  First, notice that Sam Houston and Houston Baptist are the only two schools in the conference that get more than half of their team kills from two players.  Again, illustrating balance in the offense, notice that SFA is 10th of 13th here.  Again, the more spread around the offense is, the lesser these percentages tend to be when incorporating just the top two team leaders.  But, probably most interesting is that SFA is one of only four schools in the conference to have its second leading scorer not be an outside hitter. The other three are UIW (Sarea Alexander, MB and Breyauna Hall, MB, tied for 2nd), McNeese (Shanna Spree, MB) and AMCC (Madison Green, RS).

Sam Houston depends on getting 18% more kills from its top two attackers than does SFA.  To look at this another way, SFA has given 41% of the set balls to our two leading primary outside hitters to date (Coleman and Evans). Sam Houston has set Vaughn and White a whopping 57% of the time -easily the highest percentage in the league.  That 16% difference in those two numbers equates to roughly 550 to 600 balls that have been set to girls other than the two primary outside hitters for SFA.  That's a lot of sets!  Plus, once again it illustrates with numbers just how much more diverse our offense has become and just how different it is than Sam Houston's attack.

Now, to REALLY show you how top heavy the Bearkat offense is, let's repeat this one last time by calculating the percentages of kills earned by the top THREE kill leaders on each Southland team.  Look at how much higher the Bearkat percentage is that even the second team on this leaderboard!

Percentage of Team Total Kills by Top Three Kill Leaders:

1. Vaughn, White and Cunningham, Sam Houston, 77.6%

2. Banks, Wooten and Gillard, Houston Baptist, 63.6%

3. Rogers, Brister and Seaton, Northwestern State, 62.1%

...

10. Coleman, Daron and Evans, SFA, 55.1%

Southland Average: 59.2%

Wow!  That's 14% more kills from the top three at Sam Houston that the next closest clubs on that list.  There is a 22% difference between SHSU and SFA on this list and again SFA comes in 10th illustrating that we are way more than three deep in terms of who generates kills for our offense.  By the way, in case you are wondering about the teams that come out MORE balanced on offense than SFA:  None of the teams ranking more evenly distributed than SFA project to make the tournament with the exception of Texas A&M - Corpus Christi. What this tells me is that the balanced offenses in the conference either are offenses that just can't find girls to generate kills or have multiple weapons like AMCC and SFA. 

It should be noted here that AMCC's "balance" is not achieved in the same way as SFA's.  The Islanders balance comes when you look at the second through fifth leading kill generators.  Brittany Gilpin leads AMCC with 281 kills, which is a ton more than second place leader Madison Green at 160.  But look at what happens with AMCC when you look at #2-#5:  Green (160), Nicholson (148), Doud (138) and Moran (134).  That is VERY evenly distributed. So, the Islanders (obviously) have one strong attacker and then a ton of balanced looks behind her.

SFA's balance is achieved in its top 3 kill leaders and then the mega-efficient Makenzee Hanna behind them.  To wit, Coleman has 282 kills; Daron has 256 and Evans 239.  That's the primary balance for SFA.  Then you factor in Hanna who is our fourth leading terminator, but is hitting .357 to lead the conference.

There is another way that we can illustrate SFA's balanced offense in 2017. A measure called standard deviation can be used to measure the spread among a set of numbers.  The lower the standard deviation, the more consistent or more "bunched" a set of numbers are around the average.  The higher the standard deviation, the more spread or diverse a set of numbers are. 

When factoring in the top four attackers on each team, SFA's standard deviation ranks 9th in the conference.  Sam Houston has the HIGHEST standard deviation whether you factor in the primary three, four or five attackers on each team.  So, no matter how you slice it, the Bearkat offense is the offense that depends heaviest on its top three.  In fact, contributing to this highest standard deviation in the conference is the fact that SHSU is the ONLY team in the conference whose fourth leader in kills hasn't even tallied 100 terminations.  Madison Wallace is fourth on the Bearkats in kills with just 91.  Makenzee Hanna is 4th for SFA and has more than TWICE that many (186). In fact, among all 4th leading scorers in the conference only Megan Nash of UCA (214) and Alexis Warren of NSU (190) have more kills than Hanna.  Nash is hitting .319 while playing in the middle like Hanna.  Warren is an outside hitter with a .074 attack percentage.  Ouch.

To put a bow on this, Sam Houston's offense by either measuring percentages of kills by their leaders are spread in the Top 4 or 5 attackers is clearly the most dependent offense in the league on the fewest girls.  But, of course, the Bearkats have traditionally had offenses like this and it has served them well in 2017 as they come in to Saturday's match up in 3rd place and they project as a dangerous team to play in the postseason.

For SFA, their percentages of kills from their top kill generators rank below conference average - which is GOOD when trying to demonstrate that you have a balanced attack.  It means that you are LESS reliant on just two or three people to generate kills.  We were able to show SFA's balance by also calculating the spread in the kill totals for the SFA leaders and showing it is one of the lowest in the league.  This proves SFA has had a more uniform or even distribution of attacks compared to the league due to the low spread in these numbers. Sam Houston's standard deviation is much higher than any other Southland club.

With Sam Houston, you know what you are going to get:  A WHOLE LOT of Jordan Vaughn, Brooke White and Taylor Cunningham.  With SFA, one night it might be Haley Coleman leading the way.  The next night it could be Danae Daron or Makenzee Hanna.  Another night, Corin Evans might put up a double-double. Mixed in all of that is the chance for Peyton Redmond to get 10 kills like she did last night or maybe Anyia Williams will put up big numbers.

It is clear we have two different winning formulas for two different clubs.  Enjoy watching both of these teams in the final week of the season and in the Southland Conference Tournament.  It sure will be interesting to see which style of offense can succeed the most in November.