UCLA’s Daenan Gyimah Posts Best Hitting Percentage of NCAA Modern Era

  0 Braden Keith | May 10th, 2018 | College - Men's Indoor, MPSF, News

The ‘modern era’ in NCAA men’s volleyball is not that old; unlike in women’s volleyball, where the shift to the current 25-point, rally-scoring era happened in 2008, the men didn’t land upon the current scoring system until the 2010-2011 season.

In the 8 seasons since, nobody has been more efficient offensively in a season than UCLA sophomore middle blocker Daenen Gyimah was in 2018.

Gyimah hit .528 on 301 kills in 2018, with 43 errors in 489 attacks. That surpasses Fabio Diniz’s 2015 season, where he hit .517 on 383 attacks. To be eligible for this honor, players must average 3.3 attacks per set played, and must play in at least two-thirds of their team’s set in the season.

He also had 151 blocks and 46 ace serves.

He becomes the 11th player since NCAA Championship volleyball began in 1970 to hit over .500 while meeting the eligibility criteria. The UCLA record still belongs to Tim Kelly, who hit .539 in 1994 on 310 attacks.

The all-time record belongs to former Penn State middle blocker Keith Kowal, who hit .574 in 2004 (although we’re trying to figure out why the NCAA record book doesn’t recognize his hitting percentage results from 2003 or 2004, which seem to meet the 3.3 attacks/set and 2/3 of team’s set criteria). Another Penn State Nittany Lion ranks 2nd: Max Holt hit .562 in 2009, the penultimate season under the 30-point scoring system. Holt, currently playing professionally in Italy, has been a member of the U.S. Men’s National Team since 2010, and won Olympic bronze with Team USA at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.

Thus far, only one player, Keith Kowal*, has hit over .500 in multiple seasons in any era. The next-closest that anybody has come is Ohio State’s Max Lipsitz, who hit .524 in 2010, a year after hitting .490 in 2009. Gyimah, has two more opportunities if he plays out the remainder of his collegiate eligibility.

Ohio State leads all teams with 4 players who have hit over .500; Penn State has 3 players (on 4 occasions) and UCLA now each have two such players.

Loyola Chicago middle blocker Jeff Jendryk hit .457 to rank 2nd nationally. Only 4 players (Scott Stadick, UC Irinve, .422 & Hunter Howell, Concordia, .421) hit better than .400. 6 players hit better than .400 last year; 9 did so the year before.

See below for the 20 highest hitting percentages in NCAA history, across all eras – accounting for every player that has hit .490 or better in an eligible season.

*Update: Keith Kowal is not included in the NCAA Record books for his hitting percentages from 2003 and 2004 – the latter of which is the highest eligible year in NCAA history. In both seasons, he averaged more than 3.3 attacks/set, and played in more than 2/3 of his teams sets, which means he should be eligible. We have reached out to the NCAA to see why he was excluded, but for now have updated the rankings below to reflect his two greater-than-.500 seasons.

Rank School Year Kills Errors Attacks Percentage
1 Keith Kowal Penn State 2004 398 48 610 0.574
2 Max Holt Penn State 2009 270 39 411 0.562
3 Tim Kelly UCLA 1994 193 26 310 0.539
4 Paul Fasshauer Ball State 2002 276 37 446 0.536
5 Layne Dreven Ohio State 2007 206 31 328 0.534
6 Daenan Gyimah UCLA 2018 301 43 489 0.528
7 Rene’ Esteves Ohio State 2000 330 55 523 0.526
8 Max Lipistz Penn State 2010 397 71 622 0.524
9 Colin McMillan Ohio State 2000 349 41 595 0.518
10 Fabio Diniz Pfeiffer 2015 235 37 383 0.517
11 Keith Kowal Penn State 2003 339 66 542 0.504
12 Adam Pedersen Ohio State 2002 209 36 344 0.503
13 Matt Olsen BYU 2000 297 57 479 0.501
14 Dan Powers Juniata 2009 273 44 462 0.496
15 Joshua Stanhiser Hawaii 2004 234 47 378 0.495
16 Ethan Wall BYU 1993 343 68 558 0.493
17 Paul Aviles Lewis 1996 287 51 479 0.493
18 Paul Johnson UCLA 2005 413 74 690 0.491
19 Kevin Miller Lewis 2001 189 45 294 0.490
20 Max Lipistz Penn State 2009 272 57 439 0.490

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About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of VolleyMob.com. Braden's first foray into sports journalism came in 2010, when he launched a swimming website called The Swimmers' Circle. Two years later, he joined SwimSwam.com as a co-founder. Long huge fans of volleyball, when Braden and the SwimSwam partners sought an opportunity to …

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