Marquette improved their position from last week even without picking up a win against a ranked opponent.
Something happened to improve Marquette volleyball in the eyes of the AVCA top 25 voters over the past week. I’m not sure it was their wins over Xavier and DePaul, as those aren’t knock your socks off victories.
Still, the Golden Eagles are up to 30 points in the polling this week after picking up just 11 points last week. 30 points puts them as the unofficial #28 team in the country, right between both Miami and BYU with 65 points and Western Kentucky, a team that Marquette beat, with 20 points. North Carolina picked up just 75 points to be #25 in the country, so MU isn’t that far off the pace.
The top five spots in the poll are the same as they were last week, so that’s #1 Pitt and #5 Creighton in terms of opponents on Marquette’s schedule this season. Stanford and Wisconsin flip flopped spots to end up at #6 and #7 respectively this week.
Kansas landed just less than 100 points outside the top 10 at #11 this time around, The only other ranked team on Marquette’s schedule this week is Dayton, and finally the Flyers have a team that’s not named Marquette that’s beaten them this season. Their second loss of the year has dropped them from #18 to #23. The loss? A 3-0 sweep to Loyola Chicago in the Atlantic 10 championship match. I don’t think that’s going to cost Dayton a spot in the NCAA tournament….. but it ain’t great, either.
Marquette returns to action this Friday when they play in the Big East tournament semifinals. The opponent is still up in the air, as UConn and Villanova will face off in the first round on Wednesday, with the winner advancing to face MU on Friday evening.
You can check out the entire top 25 right here.