Author: chadgordon09

Quick update on our original post. We've mostly solved the "players switching sides while jumping" problem and have also jumped into the rabbit hole of ball tracking as well. I'm not going to get into the technical details here - more just give a glimpse into what we've been working on and where we are [...]

Figured we'd throw a super quick Final Four + Stivrins post together just to wrap up the 2021 season as everyone shifts their attention to the transfer portal and freaks out about the seasonal coaching reshuffle. Starting with the semifinals, below are the Match Win Probability charts - visually describing a team's likelihood to win [...]

So...what was the point again? Honestly, we didn't set out to make a ratings system. We were building our xPWP model (expected Point Win Probability) and needed a reasonably accurate estimate of the initial chance of each team winning the point (ex: Nebraska serving to Wisconsin, before the serve happens, how likely is Nebraska to [...]

Computer vision already powers self-driving cars, the gaming world, and numerous other products. Within sport, this technology has already made its way into basketball, football, baseball, soccer, etc. - and has further fueled their respective analytics movements. One of my favorite articles that encapsulates what this work allows for is from Brian Macdonald. Published in [...]

December 18th: Updated predictions moving into the Finals are live Had a great week in Columbus - and now we're down to the final two. Our model likes Wisconsin over Nebraska 58/42 But personally...I think Nebraska is on a heater and they're gonna take this thing tonight...we shall see. December 14th: Updated predictions moving into [...]

Madeline Gates - 2019 Stanford University Interactive Dashboard: https://public.tableau.com/views/SeasonTrends/HittingEfficiency?:language=en&:display_count=y&publish=yes&:origin=viz_share_link Is your team getting better or worse as the season progresses? Are your players developing and performing stronger as the year goes on? In the chart above, we take a look at Madeline Gates, the middle from Stanford. We're looking at a rolling average of her [...]

Interactive Dashboard: https://public.tableau.com/views/Expectationvs_Reality/Overall?:language=en&:display_count=y&publish=yes&:origin=viz_share_link This is the direction I think the sport of volleyball needs to go - getting all skills, all contacts, all situations, and all performance evaluation into the single language of points. The same way the NBA has expected points per shot based on the location on the floor + number of defenders, [...]

Interactive Dashboard: https://public.tableau.com/profile/chad.gordon#!/vizhome/Blocking-TheUnsungHero/BlockingAffectsHittingEff In my opinion, blocking is the most "shrugged off" skills in our sport. Guy gets up, bounces a ball in the middle of the court and blocker turns to the coach who promptly gives him the "thumbs up, move on" type of gesture. While you're unlikely to fix your team in the [...]

So, admittedly it's been a while since I posted about Point Win Probability (PWP), which to be honest, I think is pretty sweet. But today, I'm mostly here to steal a good idea from Nate Ngo (whose blog is here and you should 1000% check out if you have not). His issue was that, like [...]