We recently saw a discussion about which 2011 women’s volleyball team is the youngest. The metric used (at least in the first couple of pages — we only got that far) was the percentage of each team’s total roster that is composed of freshmen or sophomores.
That’s fine, as far as it goes, but it doesn’t tell us which players are actually playing the biggest roles — that is, which teams are relying most on freshmen and sophomores.
We decided to try to answer that question for the top five teams (based on won-lost records through 10-2-11) in the Big Ten: Illinois, Nebraska, Purdue, Penn State, and Michigan. We looked at the top 10 players on each team (based on number of sets played), and compared the totals for those players to the team’s total in each of three categories: kills, digs, and points. Below are two sets of charts reflecting our calculations. The first set includes aggregate data for all five teams. The second set includes data for the individual players on each team.
The fairly obvious conclusion? It’s nice to be able to count on experienced players.
Oh, and a word of caution. We’re virtually certain that our crack team of DigNittany researchers and statisticians made some errors. They’ve been rather surly lately, and our suspicions were raised when one of them said “if nyline can even find it, let him fix it! So if you find any any errors, please let us know.
We’re still trying to get our arms around the roles of the new kids in the Big Ten.
Aggregate Data – All Teams
Comparison - Kills by Freshmen and Sophomores as % of Team Total
Comparison - Digs & Points by Freshmen and Sophomores as % of Team Total
Individual Data by Team
Illinois - Kills by Freshmen and Sophmores as % of Team Total
Illinois - Digs & Points by Freshmen and Sophmores as % of Team Total
Nebraska - Kills by Freshmen and Sophmores as % of Team Total
Nebraska - Digs & Points by Freshmen and Sophmores as % of Team Total
Purdue - Kills by Freshmen and Sophmores as % of Team Total
Purdue - Digs and Points by Freshmen and Sophmores as % of Team Total
Penn State - Kills by Freshmen and Sophomores as % of Team Total
Penn State - Digs & Points by Freshmen and Sophomores as % of Team Total
Michigan - Kills by Freshmen and Sophmores as % of Team Total
Michigan - Digs & Points by Freshmen and Sophmores as % of Team Total