[TimTaylor]

Nice explanation Felix!

Scrapper, one thing that really helped me was going to watch some matches on nights I wasn't working. It gives you a chance to focus on watching one or two things without the pressure of the other duties you have when officiating. Another thing that will help is working tournaments. You'll see the same teams several times during the day & start to recognize the patterns.

Another thing identifying the setters will help you with down the road is recognizing the offensive setup the teams are using, which in combination with the position information Felix described, can give you an idea what to watch for during the match. I start by identifying the setters during prematch warmups, then when the lineups are submitted I note how many setters are in the game for each team and their relative positions to each other & their teammates as Felix described.

There are 3 basic offensive setups:
6-2: (6 hitters-2 setters) The setters are in opposite positions (ie RF, LB) and the person setting always comes from the back row, which means they always have 3 hitters in the front row.

4-2: (4 hitters-2 setters). As with 6-2 setters are opposite, but the front row setter usually does most of the sets. Disadvantage is they only have 2 hitters in the front row, advantage is that front row setter can legally tip or dump the ball over the net forcing the other team to be ready to defend her.

5-1: (5 hitters-1 setter). In this setup there is only 1 setter, so half the time they have 2 FR hitters and the other half 3 FR hitters.

So what does this tell you? Anytime you have a setter coming from the back row there is an increased potential for an IA to occur. In my experience at least, this seems to happen more often with a 5-1 set, usually when the setter is LB and in too big a hurry to get to the RF area to be ready to set. I would be interested if others have noticed anything similar. There's also an increased potential for a BRA or BRB you need to be aware of. As the R this helps you identify BRA/BRB situations and see IA of the serving team. As the U it helps you identify IA of the receive team and to feed things like server position (FR/BR) to the R via discrete signals to assist them.

Like I said, some of this is down the road a ways from where you are now, but hopefully gives you an idea why knowing who & where the setters are is important.