Attacking and Scoring by College Volleyball Players: A Matching Analysis

We applied the generalized matching equation to examine the relation between attacks attempted and points scored by the top five attackers on 36 Division 1 National Collegiate Athletic Association women’s volleyball teams during the 2017–2018 season. Twelve of the teams were highest-ranked at season’s end, 12 were mid-ranked, and 12 were lowest-ranked. The equation accounted for at least 70% of the variance in responding for 31 teams. Of them, 16 teams demonstrated undermatching, 4 demonstrated overmatching, and 11 approached strict matching. Eight of these teams were biased towards attempts by a single player and four towards attempts by the other four players combined. Team ranking did not consistently affect performance. These findings are significant in extending the provenance of matching to another sport and to a naturalistic setting involving three or more response options.