From: wang@ibmb6.cs.uiuc.edu (Eric Wang)
Subject: Re: Slides
Reply-To: wang@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 21:40:03 GMT

wung@ee.gatech.edu (Peter Wung) writes:

>... try hitting some slides ... when we are running a 5-1 and our
>setter is front row.  ... A few guys are vehemently opposed to it
>because they think that it is a wimpy play that only women run.

Tell them that Avital Selinger and Ron Zwerver run the slide and love
it.  Ask them if that's studly enough for them.  :-)

Earlier this spring, I down-reffed the Michigan-at-Illinois men's MIVA
match.  Michigan had a monster MB who planted for his 1s about 8' off
the net, hit them about 4' off and ~2.5' above, and bounced them them
right around the 3m-sideline corner.  He also ran slides for fun,
cutting the ball sharply inside the block into the middle of our attack
zone (i.e. about 5' into our side of the court, equidistant from either
sideline, basically totally undigabble, landing a good 10' from the
nearest digger).  Since I was standing right next to the pole, he was
hitting his slides just about above my head, and the sound of his hand
hitting the ball was like a pistol shot.  Those were the hardest hits we
saw all day long, easily harder than anything the OHs put down.  (A good
hit sounds like "boom-boom", one for hand->ball and one for ball->floor.
This guy's slide hits sounded like "BDOOM".)

>Most of the guys are ambivolent, the middle hitters love the idea.  

So drag your MHs off for a couple of weekends and have them practice
slides, then have the doubters try to dig (or block) them a few times.
That'll bring them around.

>The advantages, as I understand it is that this is a play that develops
>along the net, which should confuse the blocks sufficiently to isolate
>a blocker or even to create a no block situation.

Advantages:
  : Power.
    The slide armswing is one of the most dynamic in the game.  It takes
    some practice to get used to jumping off of one leg, but you can
    really twist your hips and shoulders into the ball.  Good slide hits
    are usually hit harder than good 1's or 31's.  MHs tend to like them
    because they can really cut loose and swing hard, which they usually
    can't do on quick hits.

  : Backwards-compatible.  :-)
    The starting position for an MB's slide approach is the same as for
    a standard 1.  So your MB gains new attacking options, which makes
    it that much harder for the opposing blockers to commit to him.

  : Pins opposing left-side blocker near the antenna.
    Opposing left-side blocker (OLB) usually cheats in and double-blocks
    your MH's 1s.  But if you can run the slide effectively, the OLB
    must stay out in preparation.  (If a blocker lines up across the net
    from a hitter, and they race outside to the antenna, with the hitter
    running "forward" using the slide approach, and the blocker moving
    laterally using the standard blocker's cross-over step, then the
    hitter will win and get to the ball first, because running forward
    is just plain faster than cross-stepping.  So if the blocker
    maintains good blocking form, he's too late, and if he runs, he
    can't put up a good block. \footnote[1]) If OLB sets up directly
    across from your setter for a 1 or dump, give your MB a wide slide
    to the antenna and OLB not only can't get there quickly enough to
    stop it, but also impedes OMB from closing the block.  So you get a
    split, drifting block.  Once you've convinced OLB to stay outside
    :-), the middle opens up and 1s become that much easier.

  : Spreads your middle attack, and thus the block.
    If your MB can hit 31, 1, and slide, then the opposing blockers
    can't afford to commit to any one zone of the net.  Whenever the
    blockers go too far in either direction, your MB can go in the other
    direction.  Anything that makes life harder for the opposing
    blockers is a Good Thing.  (Also, MB going on a slide pulls OMB out
    of the middle, freeing the pipe (right down the middle of the court)
    for your resident back-row bomber.

  : Fast tempo.
    The timing on a good slide is more like a second-option 2 than a
    low-outside 4.  So OMB and OLB don't have much time to close the
    block.  Among other things, this makes the slide a good weapon to
    use in transition, when the opponent's defense hasn't set up yet.
    (Also, since a slide hitter is intentionally drifting across the
    net, the actual contact point is hard for the blockers to calculate,
    so they might close the perfect block 2 ball diameters too far to
    the right, etc.)

  : Shock value.
    Slides are so uncommon in the men's game that any team that comes
    out and really runs it well can expect to rack up lots of points, as
    the befuddled opponents learn all of the above the hard way.

    Example: two years ago, our grad team played our MIVA team in the
    championship match of our invitational tourney.  The grads had a
    hitter who occasionally called for slides, and a setter who could
    set them.  This hitter would come around the MB as if for a 2 on an
    X, pulling OLB into the middle, then reverse his tracks and chase
    down a slide at the antenna.  The first two times he did this, all
    three blockers looked at the set in disbelief, said, "Oh, man," and
    completely gave up on the play, conceding him utterly uncontested
    kills.  The MIVA team eventually won, but they never did figure out
    how to block the slide.
   
  : Fun! fun! fun!
    Hitting slides is fun!  Anything that gets your MBs out of their rut
    and gets them excited is worth considering.

  : Got Any Tall Left-Handers?
    Left-handers hit FRONT-slides.  This makes them particularly
    effective in middle combination plays: instead of 1-2 X's, run 1-31
    X's, shooting a front-slide to your left-handed weak-side hitter.
    I've never seen anybody come close to blocking this one.

Disadvantages:
  : Window of vulnerability.
    If a slide hit doesn't go down, your MB will be out of blocking
    position for a couple of seconds.  (On the other hand, he'll be in
    perfect position to double-block OLH.  :-))

  : Hard to set.
    Slides take practice to set well.  Slides are almost as
    timing-dependent as quick sets, so the amount of bad-set-ness that
    the hitter can tolerate while still getting a good swing is only
    slightly greater than for quick sets.

>I have seen the women's team run this play successfully so I am pretty
>convinced of the merit of the play.  Any comments?

If your offense is already strong enough that you can reliably score
kills on any given swing whenever you need to, then you might not need
the slide.  That's why it's not so common in the men's game (and,
consequently, why men tend to do it so poorly when they try).
Ultimately, the slide is just another option at your disposal.  For most
reasonably competent mens' teams, though, investing some time in
learning the slide would be as good or better for their offense than
investing the same time in what they can already do.

\footnote[1]:

    I assume your opponents haven't mastered the art of the Running
    Block.  11 years ago, I saw a Japan-China match while in Asia, when
    2 Japanese blockers read-blocked a __back-1__, turned, sprinted 20',
    went up in unison on the run, stuffed a perfect 4-set at their
    right-side antenna, and landed bass-ackward about 5' out of bounds.
    They drifted about 6' across the net, and still put up the perfect
    block.  I've never seen anybody try it since then, though.

Eric Wang
wang@cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: rec.sport.volleyball