The Golden Eagles have now lost six times to teams that are currently in the AVCA top eight after a 3-1 home loss to Creighton.
I figured something out today as I sat in the McGuire Center watching #5 Creighton beat Marquette 3-1 in a Big East match with first place and potentially a regular season title hanging in the balance.
I figured out that Marquette’s ceiling as a team this year — and last year as well, I suppose — is “very good, so good in fact that a top 10 team will take them deathly seriously and refuse to let them have an inch of hope.”
Here’s my evidence, other than Marquette’s 0-6 record against teams currently in the top 10 of the AVCA top 25 poll:
The first set was a particularly competitive set, something you’d expect to see from a very good volleyball team playing at home against the #5 ranked team in the country. Marquette got an edge in the middle of the show, bouncing back from a 12-10 deficit to take a 16-13 lead. MU grew that margin to 20-15, and then held off Creighton from there for a fun 25-21 set after the Bluejays pulled within one at 22-21. Neither team had their A game going in the opener, with Marquette hitting .293 and holding Creighton to just .184.
Apparently this made Creighton annoyed. We saw this when these two teams played in Omaha. Marquette broke through in the third set to force a fourth one, and Creighton obliterated MU to wrap it up. Here, it was the Bluejays hitting nearly .700 while ripping Marquette apart, 25-12.
Good, but only to the point of making a top five team put you in a rear naked choke and end things very quickly.
Third set: Marquette takes an early 4-3 lead. You blink, and the Bluejays are up 11-6. MU managed to cut the lead to two, but the energy expended just to get it there means Creighton could just hold Marquette off.
Fourth set: Marquette takes a 3-1 lead and loses 25-13. 24-10 the rest of the way. It flipped with six straight after that start, and the Bluejays just kept piling on points on top of points. They were not interested in pretending to mess around with a thrilling battle on this day, and as a team that is developing national championship aspirations, they used that extra gear to suffocate all viability of a Marquette upset out of the match following that first set win by the Golden Eagles.
Up Next: At 18-7 on the year, Marquette is probably safe for the NCAA tournament as long as they close out the regular season with victories. They have three sub-200 RPI teams and one top 100 team left on the slate. MU will wrap up the home schedule next weekend with two of those sub-200 teams. It will be Georgetown at 7pm on November 15th, followed by Seton Hall at 1pm on November 17th.