VBelo Scouting Report: May 07, 2023

UCLA: Unstoppable Champions Lift Another (trophy)

May 07, 2023

Congratulations to the UCLA Bruins on winning the 2023 NCAA Men’s Volleyball Championship! This is the 20th championship in program history and the first since 2006. I can’t express this enough, but that match was something to behold. The determination and skill from both sides of the net was outstanding.

I also want to give a shoutout to Hawaiʻi for an absolutely amazing season. Although they came up just short of the three-peat, that squad should feel pride in everything they have done this season. Well done, Rainbow Warriors.

Before I talk a little bit more about the match, I want to say a quick thank you to everyone who has read these newsletters the past 4 months. This is a fun passion project for me and it brings me so much joy knowing that others have enjoyed some of this work. I am planning to take a break for most of May (unless major news drops) and then pop in here and there with some interesting articles in the offseason. Thank you, again, for supporting this work and helping #GrowTheGame.

The Finals by the Numbers

Hitting Percentage

The Bruins were able to outhit Hawaiʻi .353% to .299%. Interestingly, UCLA had a higher hitting percentage in every set except the final one, which they won.

These numbers are well below the season averages for both teams. This is a testament to the defensive pressure from both sides and what happens when the two best teams face each other in the finals. UCLA’s season average was over .380 while Hawaiʻi came in at around .370%.

For the Rainbow Warriors, their offensive “struggles” came at a terrible time. I say struggles because their hitting was well below average for this tournament, but they were also playing 2 of the best teams in the nation.

Serving

When it came to the service line, the Bruins continued their season-long domination. UCLA came into the match 3rd in the nation with just under 2 aces per set. They also averaged over 17 service errors per match about 5.2 service errors per set. This comes out to an ace to service error ratio of .38. Another way of reading this is for every 100 service errors, the Bruins had 38 aces. For comparison, Hawaiʻi has an Ace/SE ratio of .44, but they also had over 40 less aces on the season.

For this match, UCLA had more aces and more service errors. Most importantly though, their Ace/SE ratio was almost double that of Hawaiʻi.

Middles

Good passing leads to teams running the offense that they want. And the offense that most teams want to run is the middle. In the finals, both teams ran the middle with elite efficiency.

The four middles that appeared in all 4 sets (i.e. not Guy Genis) hit at least .500% for the match! For Hawai’i, middles took 18% of their attacks and UCLA had 22% of their attacks go to their bigs. Unsurprisingly, the team that won the battle of the middles won the match.

All-Tournament Team

Congratulations to the NCAA All-Tournament team!

Most Outstanding Player: Alex Knight (OH) - UCLA
Ido David (OPP) - UCLA
Troy Gooch (L) - UCLA
Jakob Thelle (S) - Hawai’i
Dimitrios Mouchlias (OPP) - Hawai’i
Brett Wildman (OH) - Penn State
Mason Briggs (L) - Long Beach

First of all, I love that two Liberos received this honor. Defense and serve receive are so important in this league and both of these players were phenomenal. The more recognition liberos and defensive play gets, the better. The second thing I noticed was that no Middle made the all-tournament team. This is wild, particularly because they played a HUGE role in the finals.

Final VBelo Rankings

I plan to dive into this more in the offseason, here are the final rankings for VBelo in the 2023 season. UCLA tops the list, followed closely by Hawai’i and Penn State.

There might be some surprising teams in surprising positions, which is what I really want to look into more. Let me know what you see and what questions you have!

Match Recap

NCAA Tournament Finals

UCLA (50%) def. Hawai'i (50%)
3-1 (28-26, 31-33, 25-21, 25-21)