November 21, 2023
InsideHitter.com took a deep dive on data this week, looking at the height distribution for D3 Men’s volleyball players across the country. Most of the data was very much in line with our expectations but there were certainly some curveballs that we did not expect.
We struggle with the belief that if you are taller, you stand a better chance of being a success at your volleyball career. For certain, if you are 5′ 5″ tall, you will probably never make it as a middle blocker. But in that light, if your 6′ 8″ tall, you will probably never make it as a libero. If you look at the stereotypical alignment of height by position, for sure larger players will have better success than smaller players.
But volleyball brings all shapes and sizes together to create a team. As is evidenced by our analysis.
HEIGHT DISTRIBUTION OF D3 MENS VOLLEYBALL 2023
It is super funny to see the deviation in the normal distribution of the bell curve above. The one aberration is that most players who are 5′ 11″, will report themselves at 6′. We estimate one-third of the 6′ population are actually 5′ 11″. It’s a psychological barrier for some players. Like calling yourself a millionaire when your net worth is 900K. Or saying you are 195 pounds when you are 215. Thus, the true median height would be 6′ 3″, rather than 6′ 0″. The mean height calculates at 6′ 1.5″.
It’s astonishing to see the outliers in these categories. There are 13 players at 6′ 9″ or above. Many are recognizable as some of the best players in the country:
D3 “Big Men”
Jared Piontowski (Misericordia 25′ via King’s) 6′ 10″ RS
Borys Horiuk (Cal Lutheran 25′) 6″ 10″ MB
Kade Van Assen (Dominican 25′) 6′ 10″ S
Sebastien Navarro (Hiram 26′) 6′ 10″ RS/MB
6′ 9″ players are Grant Veldman (Carthage 26′), Moose Perry (Elms 23′), Owen Lukelich (Illinois Wesleyan 26′), Jack Freese (Kean 26′), John Quinlan (Marymount 26′), Jeremy Cardenas (North Central 23′), Dan Broberg (St. John Fisher 26′), Kaleb Proudfoot (Thiel 26′), and Jacob LaBouliere (Wentworth 24′). Players in this height category represent less than 1% of the D3 populations.
There are some major big men coming on to the scene as freshman or new players on the landscape for 2024. Eastern has added 6′ 9″ grad student Jarred Barch to their squad for this season. Marymount will create a twin tower situation by adding 6′ 8″ MB Seth Richards to the squad as he joins 6′ 9″ John Quinlan. Wentworth has secured D1 graduate student and MB Brandon Dunz from SFU. This could be a stunning combination with LaBouliere on the outside. Bryce Matthews, a 6′ 9″ pin hitter from River City VBC joins Randolph Macon in the CVC. And Rivier has added what will be the tallest player in D3 with freshman MB Tyler Dickinson being added from Manville, Rhode Island. Tyler is 6′ 11″. We still have more than half of our preseason reports to publish so we are sure more big men will emerge and be added to the freshman list.
We did identify a pretty major typo across the D3 landscape. And we are sure there are probably more that are not as visible as the one we found. Felix Massey of Sarah Lawrence has been listed as 4′ 6″ all last season. In actuality, Felix is 6′ 4″ and obviously a good sport at dealing with the misinformation.
As far as the “Small Men” on the landscape, we have 4 players who are 5′ 3″. Only 2 of the 4 are liberos. There are 4 players at 5′ 4″ and a dozen at 5′ 5″.
As you look at the data by class year, the bell curve is rather consistent for each class. It does appear that freshman or sophomores listed are taller than the other class years but the graph is counting players not percentages. Which led us to further analyze class size.
We have spent a huge hunk of time over the last decade analyzing the high school landscape. We see a pretty major inversion of the data points between the D3 college level and high school. At the high school level, traditionally, 45% of players are seniors, 35% are juniors, 15% are sophomores and 5% are freshman. At D3, we see much of the reverse. Most of the players on rosters are freshman. And you can see the toll that the college experience takes on juniors and seniors as life gets in the way through the journey. We expect there is less tolerance of lower playing times as the players progress through their later years in college, especially compared to first- or second-year players.
We hope to do more analysis like this throughout the D3 season starting January…
