Title: Volleyball Tournaments
Date: 6 October 2011
Category: Outside of Class

http://www.beachvolleyballpedia.com/

             Today our High School volleyball teams participated in a city tournament. While contemplating about the ranking of the schools after the tournament, I began to wonder about the reliability on these ranks in determining the best team. [Wondering] We had played according to the round-robin system in which the team who had won the most out of their pool would be considered as the best in their pool. Although many sports tournaments adopt this system, it contains several flaws that limit the reliability of this method.

            For example, the term “better” is ambiguous. [Knowledge Issue] It suggests multiple meanings: better in strategy, technique, communications, cooperation etc. For example, if one team had better volleyball strategies (using a 3-hit play) but makes more mistakes which causes them to lose the game, does it mean that the opposing team was better than them overall even if this other team was playing a 1-hit play? I feel that this is unfair as the team playing 3-hits has a higher chance of making mistakes as it involves 3 people, than the other team. Thus, the manner in which the teams are awarded seem to be biased in only looking at the scores (whether these points were deserved or underserved by the winning team). For example, a school we played against received 2 points because we missed our serves. Is this fair even though they didn’t need to do anything? If this is a method of punishing the serving team for not making their serves, shouldn’t points be deducted instead? [Wonderings] In addition, I feel that the best team should be the team who shows the best in all the categories mentioned above (strategy, technique, communication and cooperation). If a team is best at technique and the other team is best at communication, who decides which team is better? [Knowledge Issue]

            With these flaws, is the reputation of being “championship” merely a motivation for people to play volleyball or does it really reflect the excellent level of the play of the team? [Wondering]