VBelo Scouting Report: May 4, 2022
VBelo Scouting Report: May 4, 2022
Favorites in the final four
Yesterday went mostly as expected. Both UCLA and Hawai’i won their opening round matches. Both teams had a greater than 60% chance of winning, according to VBelo, so no big surprises there. That being said, the matches were great to watch.
Pepperdine gave UCLA a run for their money pushing them to 4 sets including an overtime set 3. The Waves were playing some of their best volleyball right at the end of the season, but UCLA, and their home court, was just a little bit too much for them yesterday.
North Greenville’s NCAA run ended when they faced the dominant Rainbow Warriors. This incredibly young team should be proud of how far they came this year. They will definitely be the team to beat in the Conference Carolinas next season. Exciting things are happening down in the Conference Carolinas, so teams (and tweets) better not underestimate them.
Match Recaps
#4 UCLA (66%) def. #5 Pepperdine (34%): 3-1
(25-23, 22-25, 26-24, 25-19)
While their 23 service errors look bad, UCLA more than made up for it by hitting .437 on the match and .636 in the decisive 4th set.
#3 Hawai’i (62%) def. #6 North Greenville (38%): 3-0
(25-15, 25-17, 25-16)
Setter Jakob Thelle set the Hawai’i single season record for aces in a season. He currently has 55 aces on the year.
Updated Tournament Projections
Just as it was pointed out yesterday, the biggest winners from yesterday’s matches were UCLA and Hawai’i. They both climb up the probability chart and land at number one and two in terms of making the finals and winning the tournament. Interestingly, the odds go in reverse order of seeding. (Apparently the selection committee didn’t look at VBelo when making the seedings. Go figure.)
It is also worth mentioning that 4 of the top 5 teams, in terms of VBelo, made the final four. The only team not to make it is Penn State (currently #2 in VBelo.) The semifinals feature four teams that fully deserve to be there and who all stand a very reasonable chance of taking home a trophy. This is what parity looks like, and I am a fan of it.
Tomorrow we will look at the VBelo path that each of these teams took to get here, so stay tuned.
A Short Aside
I don’t want to spend too much time on this, but I want to try and explain why the odds changed so much after the victories yesterday. The short version of the story is that when teams with lower VBelo ratings are taken out of the tournament, the strongest teams benefit the most. In this case, UCLA and Hawai’i gain by North Greenville and Pepperdine being defeated.
Let’s look at the top of the bracket as an example. UCLA had a higher VBelo rating than Pepperdine. The winner of that match would face Long Beach, who has a higher VBelo rating than Pepperdine but a lower VBelo rating than UCLA. If Pepperdine would have won, then Long Beach has an easier path to the finals. So in the 50,000 simulations (for the chart above), every time Pepperdine makes it to the semifinals, Long Beach makes it to the finals more often than they do when UCLA makes it to the finals. The same is true on the other side of the bracket because Ball State’s VBelo falls between Hawai’i and North Greenville.
This does not mean that the initial odds presented at the beginning of the tournament were wrong. They accurately reflected the chances of each team making it through the tournament. After every round, the model has more data and the choices are fewer so the odds should change. (It would be very concerning mathematically if the probabilities didn’t change with additional data. There would probably also be something wrong with the code too.)
So, that explains why Ball State lost its top spot and why UCLA now sits at the top (with its comfy home court advantage.) The bottom line is still pretty much the same, however. It is anyone’s tournament to win at this point.
Tweet of the Day
This was probably the most exciting thing I saw today on Twitter yesterday. Live analysis from one of the volleyball data kings! You know I will be following along.
