August 22, 2022
We just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has taken the time to complete our NJP website survey. After doing this for so many years, we know the key to providing the best information is based on the community around us. We certainly have our own ideas and brand but it gets nuanced by surveys like the one we launched last week. We always have an open ear to feedback and also will always take the time to answer inquiries and questions. We will try to respond to each item in the survey below. We have removed names of players and teams referred to in the text of the inquiries.
Scroll to the bottom to see individual recommendations and responses.
Many of the responses carry consensus among the group and some are more of a one-off nature. These results are from the first 50 responses. More to come so stay tuned…
Would you recommend our volleyball website to other friends or fans?
Overall, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with our website?
How responsive have we been to your questions, dm’s or emails?
Have you ever considered signing up for automatic updates to stay current on all site changes and additions? If so, see the right side of the home page under “Subscribe to Blog”
Now here are general comments on an individual basis:
I LOVE everything you do. I think its great that you use algorithms for your data!!! I would actually pay a small fee to have access to your site i think its that great! Kudos and please keep covering NJ volleyball!
Awesome… we appreciate it.
Not much, just covering more schools, not everyone has the resources for club, but they still try and still go toe to toe with the big schools.
We try the best we can with several parts of the site that recognize players from all teams. With 330 teams, it’s no small task. Some areas on that site that recognizes players from smaller schools or teams that are not high ranked are our accolades page, snipes page, Faces page, and of course ratings and rankings for every team in NJ rather than just the top 20 or 30. We also make a big effort with social media, especially instagram, to share stories and posts from “all” players and teams in the state.
Would like to see more coverage of our NJ club teams.
In our first year covering volleyball in 2020, we attempted to contact every club and get them on board with supplying information to the site. We took on a major project of cross-referencing the high school rosters with information on players club teams and levels. We started a database of all club players and urged clubs to share this information with us. Well, lets just say that most of the clubs were not comfortable sharing this information forcing us to collect it by individual player. We combed through public information from tournament sites, club websites, players individual recruitment pages, and even making requests for the information by DM directly to the players. It was a tedious and unsustainable effort. When we reduced our focus at the end of 2021, all club efforts were a casualty.
Hope you continue to share volleyball related topics. Not enough attention is given to this sport
We are trying. Our efforts focus on getting more players interested in the sport at all levels as well as have a place they can come that they can catch relevant information on their favorite sport and have some fun at the same time. It’s an amazing sport and we hope to further the growth.
I’d like to hear the thoughts of HS and local college coaches as well as players views on the new ratifications of limiting games, the elimination of overall championships, best out of 5, and the implementation of ref’s leniency of doubles calls.
We would love for NJ coaches (high school, club, and college) to share their thoughts on any and all areas related to current topics and issues in the sport. We give an open invitation to all coaches to share their views through a blog post or article.
Outstanding job!!
Many thanks for the kind words…
My daughters are rising Freshman & Junior and we go on NJP several times a week and constantly share content with friends and families on our club and high school.
So appreciate that!!
Excellent coverage and content!
Many thanks!
I’m not a fan of ranking players solely by their stats. If a team has 1 good player, that player is going to have top stats because there is no one else to share the kills, digs, etc. with. Also, some schools don’t record stats correctly or fail to make them a top priority. There are some amazing players on teams with multiple amazing players, but fall to the bottom of your rankings because their stats are lower.
The nature of our website is to use analytics and math to analyze, and sometimes over-analyze, data in the sport. There are many other websites that use their opinions to rate teams or suggest best players. We value those websites. And read them the same way our fans do. But our algorithm is an “additional” approach to rating teams and players. It uses the numbers and available statistics to project ratings and rankings for teams and players. Our fans know this when they visit our website. Our rankings and ratings are not perfect. We cannot measure many of the qualities that coaches and fans see on the floor every game though a season. But we will say that our ranking system across an entire state where we can pick 90% or better of the game winners is a proven system. And as far as player ratings, the vast majority of players who continue their athletic careers at the collegiate level are in the top 10% of our player ratings.
I miss the “Faces” portions. When one of our players was profiled, it was like she was a rock star on the team, and I feel it greatly helped her visibility in recruiting and club. It adds a human touch to the data-driven side, and gives the girls a chance to show their personalities. I really wish you could bring that back.
Yes, we miss it too. Your narrative is exactly how we wanted our fans and players to look at that page. We always represent the kids or coaches as superheroes. It has always been one of the most popular pages on our site since we started it in 2008. However, the world continues to change, especially over these past few years. Despite our best efforts to portray our “victims’ as heroes, we have received in a few instances very negative feedback quoting privacy concerns or inappropriate content. I think we watch too much late night TV.
Thank you for your excellent multi platform coverage and brilliant content !
Thanks you so much!
We are so excited for this upcoming HS season and look forward to your stories and athlete highlights.
Really appreciate this…
It is hard to find older posts and the home page gets a little cluttered
Thanks for this. We use a tag system so if you choose boys volleyball or girls high school volleyball, or any other tag, you will just get that content in the feed. We also have a global search feature on the top of the website where you can enter a team name or player name and see all the articles related to that topic. We do need to clean up the menus and update them and hopefully we can get to that soon.
“You don’t utilize coaches enough in anything that you do. You also don’t do enough in person reporting to actually evaluate players. For example you ranked a player in the 50’s overall in the state. She is quite possibly the best libero in NJ and for her to be ranked in the 50’s is just embarrassing. A girl from one of the top teams who I think you ranked in the top 10 cannot pass at all and she is the top 10 best player in NJ? Its’ like you just look at numbers and evaluate everything from a single standard. You do these kids no services by encouraging the wrong parts of the sport. For example, if you had reached out to any college coach, they will tell you that serve and serve receive are one of the most important parts of a players game especially for outsides. It doesn’t matter how well you can put the ball away when you only pass a 1.4. Look at “player name removed” who everyone heralds as great but in reality is going to a low level division 1 school that did not win a game last year is proof that she wasn’t division 1 material with her inability to pass. Turn that around and “player name removed” is probably the most complete player in the state and is my pick for player of the year providing her team preforms. If you had done your due diligence and reached out to teams/ coaches and asked about players to watch from their teams, players to watch that they know. Your lists would look a lot different and be a lot more accurate. Also the setter from “team name removed” who you ranked so highly, ask any of her teammates and they’ll tell you she’s terrible and she only was ranked that high because “team name removed” is so good. It really just shows your NJAC bias even if they are one of the strongest conferences in the state it doesn’t mean that every player on each team is a rock star. I implore you to use all of the resources at your disposal to really help improve the quality of content that you have. It comes from a middle school volleyball level and understanding of things. Until you make changes and properly use all of your power. NJ volleyball will be a joke to the rest of the country. And if you think I am kidding, go look at how many players of the Division 1 schools actually come from NJ. My guess is most likely 0. We need to change the narrative both you being an influence and myself as a coach to help these kids get better and understand that our low level of volleyball is not good enough to compete with the rest of the country.
Thanks for this feedback. Let’s clarify some points. Our site reports based on analytics. That is our niche. Many coaches give us feedback and we target girls for our interviews and profiles. But our goal is to get kids playing and have fun doing it. Your goal is to teach them the right way and prepare them to be the best they can be individually. Using our data and systems, we remove bias from the calculation. We take out the personal bias that can exist for a multitude of reasons. It’s human nature. There are so many positive takeaways from team sports at both high school and college. Let’s value those players who make it to the next level and not devalue what you think is a poor quality school. New Jersey continues to have quality programs and is making strides to get better every year. And yes, we still follow girls who have continued on to college, many of which are playing at the D1 level. Here is a list… https://njpowerranking.com/nj-girls-college-players/ Don’t you dare not recognize these girls accomplishments because they don’t live up to whatever your personal standard is. And ranking a player in the top 50 is not as you say an embarrassment. It’s recognition of a player at the 99th percentile of all players in NJ. Lets agree to disagree on this one.
Your rankings based solely on statistics are unrealistic because there are players ranked who are not as good as some players who are better but don’t have the statistics because their teams are better and they can’t pad them by playing teams that aren’t as good as then.
Our algorithm considers schedule strength in our ratings. And yes, we just use math on our website for rating, rankings, and game predictions.
I think you miss out on some of the South Jersey girls.
Feel free to send us some examples and we would be happy to consider them in the future. The state had some amazing performances last season from numerous South Jersey teams including many in the top of the rankings. This year should be no different.
Website Design. The site is a bit laggy.
Great input. We will try to increase performance prior to the girls season start.
The only thing i think could be better is voting for clip of the year or any voting polls. I think it becomes a popularity contest when we are allowed to vote more then once for something. I would like to see you go back to only allowing one vote per IP address.
Awesome input. We will return to that this year. Many thanks.
Wrote it above lol, other than that I enjoy the site more than nj.com
Many thanks.
Navigation/Search can be improved. Its hard to find only articles at times.
Agreed. Much appreciated. Note responses above regarding search function and tags.
I think you guys are doing great!
Many thanks.
One thought, everyone knows who the great high school teams are, but good players get lost in schools that don’t have great teams. Maybe have an article on that.
We will consider it. Thanks.
More coverage in hs boys season and coverage of local D-2 women’s vb
We did a wide variety of extras for the boys this past spring. We have been able to keep our ratings, rankings, game predictions, and also did nightly blog posts. We also introduced the NJP Yearbook for the boys this season as well as our traditional NJP awards. Can you dm or email us directly with some other suggestions on types of coverage for the boys?
As far as D2 girls volleyball in NJ, there are some great local programs. We will try to increase our coverage in this area. In an attempt to keep up with this, we launched this page but it got very few views… https://njpowerranking.com/the-feed/
While I have seen some posts and sometimes it might be hard, there is less content on freshman. I think it is important to notice younger girls as well!
We usually start covering freshman as the season progresses.
Coach Profiles
We have extended in the past many invites to coaches in NJ for articles and profiles. We have published the coaches articles that have agreed to our request.
I think the coverage you provide is amazing, and far and above anything else we could get. I also love the sense of humor and tone of the site, it is perfect for your target audience. As I mentioned above, I think the player interviews are important and the thing I miss the most from last year’s coverage to now.
We will try to incorporate player interviews into the coverage this fall as time permits. Thanks for this.
Coach & Team Manager Profiles. Nice to see recognition.
We will try on this… Many thanks.
GEVA Power League &!Tournament Results
We have struggled to keep up with Club and GEVA tournaments. Not sure we will be able to consider this with current resources.
Rankings that are more reflective of player ability as opposed to just stats (which are often misreported).
We tried to reach out to specific programs last season that we felt were over reporting stats based on our viewing of the games. We also published this article to try to help bring this issue to the forefront. Thanks for including this as part of your input. https://njpowerranking.com/2021/10/04/vb-stats-made-simple-are-you-scoring-correctly/
Article organization. Folders or sections with like posts throughout the season would be so helpful.
We will work on this.
I’d like to see more objective match stories if a match was watched live online or in person and more commentary about the flow of the match, standout players and their performances (besides just the scores) were discussed. Also, maybe there is a go-to place or tab to see all league and conference standings with additional analytics (better than what NJ.com has) that is updated after the day’s matches.
Thanks for this input. We will consider it.