Association Between The Line-Up Of The Players And The Efficiency Of The Serving Team In Volleyball

In the game of Volleyball, at the beginning of every set, the coach is called to declare the starting line-up of his players. Every time the team wins a rally served by the opponent all its players make a clockwise position rotation and the team serves the rally. The primary aim of the present study was to study whether the six possible line-ups that appear during position rotations have the same efficiency for the serving team. All the games of the A1 division of the men's Greek Championship of Volleyball for the 2005–2006 period were used. More specifically all the points (N=21469) of the two rounds of the regular season from 484 sets in 132 games, were taken into account. The results showed that the teams performed two and a half full rotations per set and that the serving team had the disadvantage to win the rally. The χ² test showed that, with regards to the efficiency of the teams when serving, there are significant differences between the six line-ups. Also the efficiency when serving for home and away games depends on the setter's position and there was a statistically significant decrease for the setter at position 4.