2 Why scouting and statistical analysis?

Statistical analysis of volleyball provides a valuable source of information for coaches and players about individual and team performances. Amongst other things it can help with:

• finding areas for improvement, areas that are working well (for individuals and teams as a whole)
• setting training goals
• assess game performance against training goals and team strategies
• assessing other teams to help prepare for upcoming matches
• testing hypotheses
• providing feedback to players
• generating match summaries and other information for media, team supporters, sponsors

Experienced coaches can and do make many of these assessments directly (without relying on an analyst), but analysis can help because it is more objective (it can provide quantitative assessments of performance, rather than subjective ones, and it is less prone to issues such as confirmation bias or a tendency to remember events that happened most recently at the expense of earlier events). It can also help assesss facets of play that can’t easily be isolated by direct observation.