The Golden Eagles take their yearly crack at knocking off a tippy top ranked Badgers squad.
I can’t go so far as to say that Tuesday night’s trip to the Kohl Center is a house money match for Marquette volleyball. If the Golden Eagles hadn’t lost to Western Michigan, maybe we could. If they had found a way to beat Stanford or Kansas earlier this season, maybe we could.
But they didn’t, they sit at 3-3 on the year after beating a Western Kentucky team that was earning top 25 votes last week (they’re not any more after losing to the Golden Eagles) as well as knocking off then-#24 Dayton. You’d rather be better than 3-3, but 3-3 is still a pretty good place to be. Marquette needed those two wins last weekend to stabilize the value of the non-conference slate on their NCAA tournament resume, and they got them.
And that’s why this isn’t quite a house money match. Marquette’s had just a touch too many stumbles already this season, so we can’t quite say that it doesn’t matter what happens on Tuesday night. Oh, it matters, all right. It would be a gigantic deal for the Golden Eagles to win a road contest against a top 10 team.
We can also say that the pressure is off Marquette. They got those two quality wins over the weekend, so there’s no reason to be anxious about the result of the visit to the Kohl Center, both us as fans as well as the team actually lining up across the net from Wisconsin. Winning would be a big deal, losing would be a bit of a sign that the Golden Eagles just aren’t quite on the level needed to be a top 10 team. But they don’t need the win over Wisconsin to prove that they’re a tournament team. That’s the value of what they accomplished in Bowling Green over the weekend.
So: Play your best, try your hardest, don’t fret about what might happen.
After all, there’s a match with #1 Pitt waiting this weekend, so that’s just another chance during this one week to beat a top 10 team. Go 1-1 in those matches, and that’s a hell of a week.
Match #7: at #7 Wisconsin Badgers (3-3)
Date: Tuesday, September 17, 2024
Time: 7pm Central
Location: Kohl Center, Madison, Wisconsin
Television: Big Ten Network
Streaming: FoxSports.com, I believe.
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 2-23 all time against Wisconsin and 1-17 since Marquette made the move to Division 1 volleyball. The Marquette win came in 2019 with both teams ranked in the top 15. The Golden Eagles lost last season as the two teams squared off at Fiserv Forum and set an NCAA indoor regular season attendance record as well as a state attendance record for women’s sports.
Yes, you read that right, Wisconsin is #7 in the country and also only .500 on the season. This is because they started off the season in about the highest profile manner possible. They visited #6 Louisville (3-1 loss), then played kind-of-host to #1 Texas (3-1 loss) and #5 Stanford (3-1 loss) at a nifty neat event at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.
None of these are bad losses, of course, and that’s why Wisconsin is still #7 in the country after they started at #3 in the preseason poll. The Badgers proved why they deserve that ranking back on September 6th and 7th when they went down to Texas and beat a TCU squad that was receiving votes and then downed then-#23 Baylor the next day. Both matches went to five sets, with UW needing to win the fourth against TCU before going to extra points in the fifth against Baylor. That’s battle tested, to say the least.
Sarah Franklin is the big power source for the Badgers. The 6’4” outside hitter is averaging 4.24 kills per set this season, and that’s actually underestimating what she’s doing. Franklin had just six kills in three sets against Milwaukee last time out, so that’s dragging her average down a tad. She’s only hit over .230 in a match once this season, so there is a way to make her inefficient and make the Badgers look elsewhere for offense. The elsewhere would mostly be Devyn Robinson, who is second on the team in both attacks and kills per set, where she’s averaging just short of three per frame. The 6’2” fifth year player from Ankeny, Iowa is hitting .350 on the year, so that’s something that the Golden Eagles are going to have to worry about before the night is up.
Freshman Lola Schumacher has stepped up to lead the team in digs at this point of the year at 3.32/set, and interestingly, Sarah Franklin has found time in her busy schedule to tie for the second most digs/set. Robinson isn’t just a dangerous attacker, she’s also adding 1.16 blocks for points to the Badgers’ matches this season. Save to say she’s partnering with a lot of different people, as no one else is north of 0.80 blocks/set.