The #24 ranked Golden Eagles have a lot of questions, but these are the big ones.
#1 — What lessons did Marquette learn from last year’s non-conference schedule?
In 2023, Marquette volleyball went 4-7 in non-conference play. That worked out to four wins against unranked opponents and seven losses against teams that were ranked at the time of the match. Three of those losses were against teams ranked in the top 10.
To be clear, none of the difficulty of the schedule was surprising last season. Five of those opponents were ranked in the preseason poll, with all three top 10 opponents starting the year in the top 10. The other two ranked foes were #26 and #27 in the preseason poll, so it was very likely that they would be ranked when they popped up in the schedule. Marquette themselves were ranked #12 in the preseason poll, so there was a certain level of optimism that the Golden Eagles could pull off some of the wins and set themselves up for a quality postseason run. That just never came together for them, as they were competitive in several circumstances but just couldn’t close the door.
Why does this matter?
Because Marquette is going to play five matches against teams in the AVCA preseason top 25 this season. That’s five matches in an eight match stretch, which also includes contests against two teams earning votes in the preseason poll, one of which is just one spot outside the top 25 right now. Three of the five contests against preseason top 25 teams are against teams in the top 10, and two of those are against Wisconsin and Pitt, two teams that MU lost to last season. Even though Marquette returns most of the lineup that won a third straight Big East regular season title last season, I suspect their seven losses a year ago to ranked non-conference foes has landed the Golden Eagles at #24 in the preseason top 25. You can’t blame the voters for looking at essentially the same Marquette roster and thinking “yeah, but they’re clearly one step down” right now.
So what’s different? What did Marquette learn from their non-conference adventures last season? How can the Golden Eagles take their experiences of seven losses before Big East play started in 2023 and apply them to the grueling non-conference schedule that faces them in 2024? It’s very clear that head coach Ryan Theis firmly trusts his team and isn’t backing down from challenging them. The question is whether or not they can respond to that challenge this time around and find a way to pick up wins.
#2 — Who’s going to play libero?
To a certain extent, this question isn’t as important as it seems. The headline item from the Playing Rules Oversight Panel meeting back in February is that the idea of double contacts while setting has been eliminated. You still can’t play the ball twice in a row, but if your set pass to a hitter isn’t 100% perfect, that’s now fine and not a violation.
However, a slightly overlooked (I completely forgot about it til I saw it mentioned during Marquette’s exhibition against Northwestern) item as part of the rules meeting is the introduction of two liberos. Not at the same time, mind you, there’s still only one allowed on the floor at a time, but you can have two players designated as libero in a match and use them interchangeably as the match goes along.
This is perhaps particularly valuable for Marquette at this exact moment in time, as Sarah Kushner was Marquette’s libero last season, but she was only in Milwaukee for one season as a grad transfer. Now, instead of having to find one defensive specialist to pick up the mantle, head coach Ryan Theis and his staff can designate two liberos for every match and go with whichever one is having the better day at the time, or even just switch back and forth because of particular strengths and weaknesses that pop up in the moment.
When Marquette faced Northwestern in an exhibition match back on Friday, all four of Marquette’s defensive specialists on the roster ended up in a libero jersey at some point. However, Adriana Studer was the only one who stayed in the jersey the whole time. That would seem to indicate that she’s leading the way to be one of the two every night, but Theis told Jack Albright from the Marquette Wire that there’s really not anything to take away from Studer staying in the lineup the whole time.
#3 — Can Marquette win an outright Big East regular season title?
Three straight years, three straight Big East regular season titles, three straight shared titles with Creighton.
The Bluejays are the pick to win the Big East this fall, and since the AVCA top 25 votes have Creighton at #12 and Marquette at #24, that’s not a surprising fact. However, the Big East coaches clearly have Marquette at #2 directly behind Creighton in the top spot, as the polling math says they got every single second place vote. Marquette can’t be that far behind the Bluejays, so it’s still reasonable to ask if Marquette can win an outright title and beat out Creighton for the top spot.
As it usually goes, these things are going to be dependent on Marquette’s two matches with Creighton. Yes, last year’s title was decided because St. John’s beat MU in New York and Xavier beat Creighton in Cincinnati, but the critical spot was the fact that the two teams split their season series as well. If Marquette wants to win an outright regular season title, the fastest way to it is winning in Omaha on October 1st and doing it again at home on November 10th. Handing the Bluejays two losses affords Marquette one bad night somewhere in the 18 game league slate, and if Creighton has an off-night of their own somewhere along the way, then Marquette holding a 2-0 record against them becomes even more valuable.
It’s possible. If Marquette comes out of the monster of a non-con slate with notable ranked wins, then it gets a little bit more possible. Yes, Marquette has not won at Creighton since the spring 2021 timeshifted season, and if you throw that one out for Weird COVID Protocol Reasons, then the last win in Nebraska was in the 2013 Big East championship match. It’s going to be hard, and maybe the math is running against the Golden Eagles. But Ryan Theis clearly believes it’s possible if his team is firing on all cylinders. You don’t go out and bring a team like Stanford to your building in non-conference play if you’re expecting to lose to Creighton on the road later on.