How strict on leaving early?
 

This is just a volleyball 101 question. How strict should I be on a back row player who moves to the front row just as the serve is being struck. This happened quite a bit in the same match where I was overruled in the other thread.

Every time their setter was in the #1 position (while receiving), she would position herself just behind the #2 position player. Then right before the serve was struck, she would step in front to get to her setting position.

This happened every time and was noticeable to me. But I didn't call it because it didn't really seem to affect anything and I don't really know how strict I should be. It was a second or less before the actual serve.

First of all, make sure her foot is down in front of the #2 postition player at the contact of the ball. I have seen a lot of setters that can time it out just right so that their foot hits the court just as or just after the serve is contacted.

As for how strict to call it - here is my philosophy.

Ask yourself this;
What is the purpose of the setter moving?
To get to an advantageous position somewhere in the middle of the court to receive a pass and run the offense.

If she is allowed to leave early and overlap to get to that advantageous position, her team has gained an advantage by violating a rule. You are a basketball official - apply advantage/disadvantage to this situation. If it is minimal, let it go or maybe just say to her...:"don't go too early" That lets her know that you are watching her and hopefully slows her down a bit. If she is gaining an advantage in getting to her spot, call the illegal alignment.

I don't toot my whistle for leaving early - overlap fault - unless serve is good. :D

To be sure of myself, I verify the position move in respect with different servers as wells as where the occurrence is more likely to happen. Some are early while in position one, while others do it while in position five.

I'll assume your big old grin means your kidding about the serve being good, since we all know the alignment trumps a bad serve. ;)

I'm really not sure what you're getting at with the "verify the position move in respect with different servers..." comment. But my take...

The setter's early movement is often very different in 1 v. 5. In 1 she's trying to time the overlap with 2, in front of her, to get to the net. In 5, she's often (usually?) lined up right behind the 4, both pulled up to the net. In this case, she's often got a couple of steps to give before she would overlap the 6, to her right, on her way to the right side of the net.

That's assuming, of course, that the setter in 1 and the 2 are pulled back in serve/receive, not up on the net mirroring when the setter is at 5.

got the bad serve argument a lot - seen people cave under the pressure of good serve contact but ball in net or out of bounds, but if server line fault or fails to execute serve within time...that's all server fault.

"verify the position move in respect with different servers..."

some servers have high ball toss - which makes it obvious for those who like to leave early to be at fault.

not always the setter is the person who's moving to create the overlap - not every team is great a having a two/three person receive only.