The Golden Eagles head off to Indianapolis for a mid-week Big East contest.
There’s not much on the line for Marquette on Wednesday night in Indianapolis.
They’re playing a Butler team that they clearly overwhelmed in Milwaukee earlier this season, so the key is to stay focused and get through this meeting with a win. A win would mean MU couldn’t finish worse than fifth in the Big East standings as it would limit them to no worse than six league losses and they would win a tiebreaker with Villanova thanks to a season sweep of the Wildcats. That part of things isn’t that important though, as finishing in the top two is the key component as that jumps you straight to the Big East semifinals.
Marquette does have an 11 match winning streak right now, so that’s on the line. Also on the line is setting up a showdown with #5 Creighton in Milwaukee on Sunday. MU needs to avoid a loss here to create a situation where they would draw even with the Bluejays in the standings and in theory prompt a tie for the regular season title once everything wraps up right before Thanksgiving.
Honestly, the most important thing is for Marquette to maintain their focus here. Their RPI has drifted all the way up to #21 in the country, so they have played their way into clear contention for an at-large bid for the NCAA tournament. Just stay the course and don’t take a bad loss at a weird time, which is what this would be.
REMINDER: Marquette’s home contests are streamed nearly exclusively on FloSports, as are all Big East home matches and all league schedule contests. If you are paying full price for FloSports at $30 a month, you are doing it wrong. Please use this link to pay less than half of that, and even less if you can use a Marquette.edu email address.
Big East Match #13: at Butler Bulldogs (6-18, 4-8 Big East)
Date: Wednesday, November 6, 2024
Time: 6pm Central
Location: Hinkle Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, Indiana
Streaming: FloSports
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 21-9 all time against Butler. The Golden Eagles head into this road trip riding a six match winning streak against the Bulldogs, including a sweep in their meeting in Milwaukee earlier this season, and they haven’t dropped a home match against them since 2017. That 2017 contest was also the last time that MU lost to Butler in a normal season, as BU’s most recent victory came in the 2020 timeshifted pandemic season.
Butler’s season has kind of turned around since the two teams met in Milwaukee in early October. At the time, Marquette’s 3-0 win over the Bulldogs dropped them to 2-13 on the season and 0-3 in the Big East. By any measure, going 4-5 since then is a fantastic run of wins for BU this season. They picked up three of those in a row, beating Providence and Seton Hall 3-1 at home and then tacking on a home sweep of Georgetown. It’s not all seashells and balloons for Butler, as they’re actually on a stretch of three losses in their last four contests. They beat Providence again, but lost on the road to St. John’s, Villanova, and UConn, all by way of sweep.
As could be expected from a team that dropped to 2-13 at the time, Butler didn’t have a fun time in the first meeting this season. As a team, they hit just .127 in the match and committed 16 attack errors, five service errors, and seven reception errors. HOT TIP: Do not hand your Earning Top 25 Votes Opponent 28 points when they’re trying to get to 75 faster than you.
While the team was struggling, Abby Maesch was not. She put up 14 kills against the Golden Eagles in just three sets and hit a perfectly respectable and honestly kinda good .289 for the night. She was the only attacker with more than four kills on the night. 14 in three sets is a good night even for Maesch, who leads Butler with 3.38 kills per set this season. It’s worth noting that she missed their recent matches against Villanova, Providence, and UConn, so there’s a chance that MU won’t see the 5’11” senior, either. Elise Ward averaged more than four kills per set against both VU and PC with Maesch out of the lineup, but only got to five total kills in three sets against UConn last time out.