Team Statistics for Division I Women’s Volleyball

Multicollinearity
Multiple regression
Correlation
Summary statistics
These data sets contain team statistics for Division I women’s volleyball in the 2022 and 2023 seasons.
Author

Jack Fay, A.J. Dykstra, and Ivan Ramler

Published

July 24, 2023

Motivation

Division 1 NCAA women’s volleyball is the highest level of collegiate competition for women’s volleyball in the United States. With well over 300 teams compete at the Division 1 level, there is fierce competition each year as only 64 teams make the post-season Volleyball Championship. The division demands high-level athletic performances, teamwork, and strategic game play from a variety of aspects. With each team having their own strengths and weaknesses, there is no exception of exciting matchups and and shocking results.

In volleyball, a kill is awarded to a player any time their attack is unreturnable by the opposition because it is the direct cause of the opponent not returning the ball. An assist is awarded when a set, pass, or dig to a teammate results in that teammate attacking the ball for a kill.

Data

The data set contains 334 rows and 14 columns. Each row represents a team at the NCAA Division 1 level from the 2022-2023 season.

volleyball_ncaa_div1_2022_23.csv
Variable Description
Team college of the volleyball team
Conference conference to which the team belongs
region region to which the team belongs
aces_per_set the average amount of balls served that directly lead to a point not including errors by the opponent per set
assists_per_set the average amount of sets, passes, or digs to a teammate that directly result in a kill per set
team_attacks_per_set the average amount of times the ball is sent to the other team’s court per set
blocks_per_set the average amount of times the ball is blocked from being hit on to the teams side per set
digs_per_set average amount of times the ball is passed by a player successfully after an opponents attack per set
hitting_pctg total team kills minus team hitting errors all divided by total attempts
kills_per_set average amount of hits that directly result in a point per set
opp_hitting_pctg the average hitting percentage of the teams opponent per set
W the amount of team wins for the season
L the amount of team losses for the season
win_loss_pctg the amount of total wins divided by the total matches of the season

Questions

  • What variables are most highly correlated with win/loss percentage of a team?

  • How are assists and kills related?

  • What model is best for predicting win/loss percentage?

References

NCAA - Women’s Volleyball

https://www.ncaa.com/stats/volleyball-women/d1