Does Size REALLY Matter?

I remember learning early on in my coaching days: “You can’t teach height!” As coaches trying to recruit the best athletes, the first noticeable attribute is the athlete’s height. You notice it before a player takes the court. But does height truly matter in USports volleyball? Do teams with taller rosters really have an edge that lead to more winning?

Let’s take a look!

Now that all teams have played their first match, I wanted to analyze the heights of the starting line ups for each team, and how they faired on opening weekend. This is by no means scientific and only a single match sample size for both wins and losses and for the starting lineup, but I hope you’ll find it interesting as we dig deeper into the importance of height in volleyball.

My method:

1. I looked at the starting line up for each USports team in their first match only. I didn’t take into account injuries or potentially those who would normally start.
2. I divided teams in to setter, middles, and outside hitters. Sorry liberos you aren’t included in my analysis.
3. I took heights from every school’s website (I know they may not be exactly accurate, but it’s what we have).
4. No one was listed under 6’0 and no one was listed over 7’0. So the numbers you see are the inches over 6 feet. Ie 5 is 6’5.
5. Brock, Trent, and Nipissing do not post heights on their website, so they were not included in the analysis. Trent and Nipissing played each other, but Brock played Guelph, so I used Guelph’s second match to allow them to be in the analysis.

Basic Data

Setters

Trinity Western has the tallest setter at 6’7.

Middles

UBC and UBCO each have the tallest middle at 6’11, but UBCO and McMaster middles average 6’10 and are the tallest combined.

Outside Hitters

UFV has the tallest outside hitters with two at 6’9 and an average of 6’7.

Team Average

The tallest starting lineups in USports this year are UFV and Queen’s at 6’68.

Conferences

The average Setter height by conference: CW:6’32, OUA:6’25, RSEQ:6’14

The average Middle height by conference : CW:6’81, OUA: 6’62, RSEQ:6’46

The average Outside hitter height by conference: CW:6’51, OUA:6’42, RSEQ:6’27

The average overall height per conference CW:6’53, OUA:6’46, RSEQ:6’31.

At all positions and overall, Canada West has taller athletes.

Individual Matches

16 of the 28 (57%) matches resulted in the taller team beating the shorter team.

This is by no means a definitive result, however this is what you get with a small sample size of a single game. There are many reasons why a team may have won or lost their first match. Take for instance UBCO and UFV playing. They are both in the top 4 ranking for height, but played each other and one team needed to lose.

Top 10 Rankings

For the reason outlined above, we looked at height in comparison to Top 10 rankings in Week 1.

When we compare to the first Top 10 rankings, 8 of the top 10 ranked teams are in the top 11 tallest teams with Laval and Montreal being the only two teams outside of it.

Conclusion

While we had some fun looking at height and volleyball, it would be irresponsible based on a single match for each team to say there is a direct correlation. That being said, there is some strong correlation when looking at the Top 10. What do you think? Leave us some comments on whether you think there is a connection between height and winning in volleyball