Of Wind

Today was the first time playing collegiate ultimate against a school other than ourselves since 15 February 2020. We lost that game over a year ago on universe point to then number one ranked Brown University (we passed them that week to become number one before COVID ended our season). After such a long hiatus we were ready for some competition.

We arrived at the fields in South Jordan today to super gusty winds which, as you can imagine, really make things interesting with a 175 gram plastic plate. Almost every tournament in high school was played in gusty winds, and the wind can either level the playing field or really widen the gap between the two teams. Nobody likes playing in the wind, especially when it's 40 degrees outside. Adding to the wind was the fact that we were playing without several of our veteran players and key contributors and we knew our competition was not going to be at the elite level we are used to playing against.  

Considering the wind, personnel, and competition factors, I was worried we were not going to show up mentally to play. A tendency of our team (and honestly probably any team) is to play to the level of an opponent. If we know we are a far better team than the other squad it's easy to not play our hardest and instead mess around and play sloppy. Today we were crisp and dominant and won both games 10-2 (over BYU Idaho and BYU b-team). We played hard, didn't have many turnovers, and controlled the tempo of every game from the first pull. Even though those teams are no Brown, Pitt, or UNC, it was great being able to go at it against some other teams than ourselves. Tomorrow should be another good day of dominant ultimate. 

To Jacob Miller (if he still reads this), we ran 3-3-1 and 2-4-1 zones force backhand (going upwind and crosswind) to trap them on the downwind side and force lower percentage looks. We had the wing mid play really shallow to stop the chisels and handler movement and that shut them down. Lots of long points but zero breaks by the o line on Friday and only one Saturday against Timpview (who we beat 13-3).

Update: Saturday we went 4-0 over Timpview (high school), BYU Idaho again, Lone Peak (high school), and a group of players from the Logan area. Feels good to be sunburned again. 

Of Critters

This post is dedicated to small animals. Today as we enjoyed the warm sun in hammocks, the question was presented about the difference between worms and nightcrawlers. We learned that the term "earthworm" is sort of like the term "mouse." While we know what a mouse is, are we aware that there are several different species of mice with differences in size, appearance, diet, range, etc? The same goes for earthworms. When we use the term "worm" we usually refer to red worms also known as compost worms, They are known for being small, red in color, and excellent for use in compost heaps. Nightcrawlers, however, are more grey in color and can grow up to 14 inches long. Also known as dew worms, nightcrawlers are often seen at night when there is condensation on the grass and it is cooler outside. If you want to learn more about the fascinating difference between these underground allies of ours, visit this page. 

Now let us turn our attention to the boxelder bug. Boxelder bugs get their name since they're always hanging around boxelder trees. They are black beetles that can fly around if they so desire. You can tell it's a boxelder bug because of the way it is, and also since it has an orange x on its back. People always lose their minds about boxelder bugs ("Get it away from me!!! Please!!! Help!!!") but they don't do anything. They can't bite you and they can't sting you but they're just sort of there in the way. I suppose they're a pain as they congregate in huge groups and randomly just show up and cover patio furniture and whole sides of houses. 

Another fun critter is a snake. Snakes are highly underrated creatures and are quite fascinating if you think about them. Their ability to traverse such variable terrains at rapid speeds without limbs is astonishing. Most snake species you'll run into around Provo, Utah are nonvenomous and aren't trying to bit your hand
off. Because Aptive texted me this week trying to recruit me to spray pesticides this summer (hard pass), here is the weekly blog photo of a snake and an Aptive shirt. 

Celebrate the warm temperatures by going outside and appreciating all the underrated critters that are emerging after another cold winter.

Of Corn Doggies

Today I'm just going to write about a few different random things that really aren't related to each other at all besides being correlated in time. Yesterday was 50 cent corn doggy day at Sonic so you know we took advantage of that. Three of us went to the Sonic in Provo and they told us they were out of corn doggies which was very disappointing. We went to another Sonic and they granted our request for 11 corn doggies which were joyfully consumed. I think Arctic Circle still might have the edge in the corn doggy department, but 50 cents is a deal that must be taken advantage of. 

Partially stemming from the prior discussion of french-type fry preferences (see Of Fries), I've decided to make a 32-team bracket to help determine what local restaurant has the best fries (at least per people's opinions via an Instagram story poll). I've asked for submissions and have more than enough for 32 but not for the full 64-team bracket. Most people who've sent in submissions have said McDonald's, so I'm curious if they'll remain on top after all 31 matchups. I had their fries a couple weeks ago and I was actually sort of disappointed. Perhaps there will be another future post about fries – either regarding the people's choices of best fries or after having tried the best fries ourselves to see if my Instagram following has good taste in regards to fries.

Last night CHI had Provo Rec all to ourselves, which was a joyous occasion. There were games of basketball, volleyball, pickleball, and even some spikeball going. Volleyball is such an interesting sport because I've watched it for years so I know a lot about the intricacies about the game (positioning, tactics, rotations, etc) but I've never really played it. I played on Jordan High's club team for one year, but none of us had ever played before so it was pretty low quality volleyball. Since I know the game so well, I naturally assumed I'd be able to step out on the court and play at a high level. It was kind of fun actually performing way under my own expectations and not being "the guy" on any of the teams I was on. I knew where to be on the court, but my sets were not as buttery as I hoped, my passing could have been better, I tipped too often instead of getting a solid swing on the ball, I completely whiffed on a balls perfectly set to me, and I think I had maybe one block the whole night. It gave me a whole new level of respect for the skills and the athleticism of collegiate volleyball players. They're just at a completely different level, and it'll be fun to watch them in person tomorrow night. 

Shoeman spent the last few weeks collecting materials to build a forge outside and melt sheets of copper down to pour into a mold for a desk weight. He spent the morning melting the copper down to molten metal (very impressed he succeeded in that task) but then the crucible was too hot for the tongs. The tongs would bend as he tried to extract the crucible to be able to pour into the mold. He's going to collect a few more materials and give it another shot soon. Needless to say, it's always exciting to see what ideas this fine roommate comes up with, and highly entertaining when he actually goes through with them.

Of Statistics

Today's blog post is dedicated to my wonderful, faithful friend named statistics, or "stats" or "bae" for short. As is the case with any of these writing exercises disguised as blog posts, this post will focus on whatever subject happens to be on my mind on Thursday evening or Friday morning. 

I'm currently working on a project with the BYU volleyball team. In different interviews and conversations with friends and enemies, I've been asked what exactly my project consists of. I want to practice giving a concise response that explains the nature and extent of the problem in terms a normal person would understand, so here is an attempt:

An important metric to look at while analyzing team performance is serving performance and efficiency. A common, yet ineffective way to accomplish this is by looking at the number of service errors and aces. While a good step, it's hard to really see how effective a server is by the number of serves that immediately end the point since the majority of the serves stay in play. Each serve and serve receive is graded. We're focusing on serve receive grade, meaning the player on the opposing team who makes contact with the ball after the serve is graded on how well he passes a ball. 

Using data from about 48000 games from 2016-2021, my job is to sort all the serves in to buckets on if they were perfect passes, positive passes, average passes, incomplete passes (ball goes all the way back over the net), poor passes, failed passes (service aces), or if there was no serve receive grade (service error). What we're looking for is called the first ball side out percentage, which is the percentage of times the receiving teams wins the point on that very first possession. We want to find the overall first ball side out percentage for men's volleyball, as well as the expected first ball side out percentage for each of those serve receive buckets. 

When the pass is perfect, the setter is in perfect position to run the offense. He has the option to set the pin hitters, set the middle, set a back row attacker, or dump it himself. However, with a poor pass the setter is off the net and his options are basically reduced to setting the pin hitters. With fewer options, the serving team has a better idea of where to set the block, how many blockers to send, and allows the remaining defenders to properly position themselves to dig the ball and continue the point. 

Having the coefficients for each category will allow for in-game analysis of serving performance. Using only aces and errors, it is hard to tell how effective a player's serving is with, for example, high numbers in both aces and errors. Are the 3 aces worth 4 free points from service errors? Hard to tell. However, since we expect the FBSO to be lower on poor passes than on perfect passes, we can get a good read on how truly effective these servers would be. Despite not having an ace, a player could have a very low expected FBSO. This tool provides coaches with better service indicators to enable them to be able to properly instruct players to either continue with the same serving strategy (speed, location, serve type, etc) or make adjustments to be more effective. 

As part of this project I'm also pulling out the expected FBSO for individual players. This will allow coaches to see how their players stack up nationally on the service efficiency spectrum and to be able to provide their players with individual benchmark goals to work towards. 

It's been fun watching the volleyball games this season in a new light. Understanding the impact of a good or a bad serve receive has really opened my eyes to why these numbers would be so useful to have as a coach. I'm grateful for STAT 495 R, Zach Knowlton, and BYU Men's Volleyball, especially Devin Young and Giuseppe Vinci, for the opportunity to do this project.

Because pictures are fun, here is one from Devin's senior night when he was still winning the MPSF as a player, not as a coach.