It’s a busy week for the Golden Eagles as they have a chance to move back into the top 25.
And so, Marquette volleyball goes into a three-match weekend with one match already in the books for this week. The Golden Eagles have a chance to go 4-0 by the time we get to sundown on Sunday, and if they pull that off, there’s a chance Marquette could be back in the AVCA top 25 on Monday.
They were close this past week, landing as the best unranked team in the country and just seven points behind #25 North Carolina. UNC has been idle since Sunday, and they have home dates with 14-4 Florida State and 13-6 Miami this weekend. These are clearly teams that they can’t expect to bowl through, so a loss by the Tar Heels opens the door for Marquette, if the Golden Eagles take care of their business.
In addition to that, it has started to seem that Marquette’s fortunes in the top 25 has been tied to Dayton. The Flyers are currently 19-1 and yep, their only loss of the entire season is on a neutral court to Marquette. If you think the Flyers are good, you have to think Marquette is the ballpark of Dayton at the very least. They play 6-12 Fordham twice in the Bronx this weekend, so that should be two more wins for the Flyers, and if they catch some breaks around them in the rankings, maybe a little upward movement for the Flyers pushes Marquette into the top 25.
It’s clearly hard to get a gauge on Marquette, so I don’t fault any voter for not putting MU in their top 25. MU is just 1-5 against top 40 opponents this season, with all six contests coming against top 13 foes. That means they’re 11-1 against everyone else, and while that’s great, the loss is to a Western Michigan team that’s working their way back towards the top 100 in the RPI. Like I said: Hard to get a gauge.
But the easiest solution to that problem is to just keep stacking one win on top of another, and MU has reeled off six straight wins since losing in Omaha to #6 Creighton. It could be nine straight wins after a busy travel weekend, and maybe that will be enough for a ranking for a pair of home matches next weekend.
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Big East Match #9: at Seton Hall Pirates (8-11, 2-6 Big East)
Date: Friday, October 25, 2024
Time: 4pm Central
Location: Walsh Gym, South Orange, New Jersey
Streaming: FloSports
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB
Marquette is 24-5 all time against Seton Hall. Marquette hasn’t lost to the Pirates since 2014, when Seton Hall beat MU in Walsh Gym in the regular season and then again in five sets in the Big East semifinals in Milwaukee. It’s been 15 straight wins for the Golden Eagles now, and three of the last four meetings have been a sweep.
I don’t have to pretend that Seton Hall is having a good season. They are in the five team section of the Big East that is not only not in the top 100, but they’re outside the top 200 in the RPI right now. (Spoiler alert: So is Georgetown.) The Pirates have ended up there because they lost on the road to that bad Fordham team that we’re expecting Dayton to roll through twice, and then they also took losses to fellow sub-200 RPI Big East teams Xavier and Butler. In fact, Seton Hall is 0-9 against top 225 opponents this season.
“Well, RPI isn’t everything!” Evollve has them as the analytical #236 team in the country. They’re #250 in the country at getting a point when they serve.
In fairness to the Pirates, only one of the five women averaging at least two kills per set has played in every set this season. That’s Reagan Merk, and she’s averaging 2.00 flat and hitting .144. Officially, SHU’s top hitter is Maddy Loiselle at 2.58 kills per set and a very robust .290 hitting percentage. She’s missed three matches this season, but has been in the lineup for every Big East contest. Seton Hall might not be at full power in terms of getting all five of those hitters in the lineup, as Jenna Walsh (2.38 kills, .154) missed both of last week’s matches.
Match #20: at Princeton Tigers (8-9, 6-2 Ivy League)
Date: Saturday, October 26, 2024
Time: 12:30pm Central
Location: Dillon Gymnasium, Princeton, New Jersey
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB
This is the first ever meeting between Marquette and Princeton.
I want to point this out relative to the travel for this weekend. You might say “oh, hey, two matches in New Jersey then down to D.C. for Sunday.” Sure, I see the point. But door-to-door, it’s a 40+ mile trip from Walsh Gym to Dillon Gymnasium between Friday and Saturday’s matches….. and then it’s a 4-ish hour drive to D.C. for Sunday’s match, and given that your flight options are 1) drive the 40+ miles back to Newark or B) continue forward to Philadelphia, just chugging it out on a bus after this match is over is probably the best decision? I’m just saying it’s not going to be the most fun thing that Marquette has done all season.
In any case, Princeton is the best team that Marquette is playing this weekend. They’re a top 140 RPI team and a top 200 Evollve team, and that’s something that the two Big East foes can’t say. The Tigers come in on a four match winning streak, and they’ve won six of the last seven with only a 3-1 home loss to a Yale team that’s undefeated in Ivy League action mucking up that streak. At least in terms of RPI, Yale’s a good comparison to Marquette, as they’re both top 40 teams right now. In other words, Princeton might be capable of frustrating Marquette for good long stretches of this match even if they don’t have a top 110 RPI win this season.
The fastest way to avoid that frustration is dealing with Kamryn Chaney. She averages a team high 4.41 kills per set this season, and she’s hitting a very nice .267 to this point of the year. The 6’1” outside hitter from Chicago has been on fire in Ivy League play lately, averaging over five kills a set and very nearly hitting .300, so turning Saturday into an off day for her should be a quick path towards victory for MU. No one else on the Princeton roster averages more than 2.5 kills per set, so the Tigers could struggle if they have to start looking for non-Chaney options.
Chaney can play all over the floor, as she’s second on the team in digs per set and averages nearly half a block per set. Shelby Fulton (0.67/set) and Lucia Scalamandre (0.93) are her most likely partners on assisted blocks, so the Golden Eagles are going to have to keep their eyes open on how the Tigers are going after their shots at the net.
Big East Match #10: at Georgetown Hoyas (8-12, 1-7 Big East)
Date: Sunday, October 27, 2024
Time: 1pm Central
Location: McDonough Arena, Washington, D.C.
Streaming: GUHoyas.com, because apparently the Hoyas are too good for FloSports or something
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB
Marquette is 23-4 all time against Georgetown. All of GU’s victories in the series came in the first seven meetings, so it’s been 20 straight victories for the Golden Eagles now. Marquette hasn’t lost a set to the Hoyas since 2019, and that’s the only set they’ve dropped since 2016.
Georgetown comes into the weekend riding a four match losing streak, and only a 3-1 road win against Providence is stopping that from being 11 straight matches since they lost their last three non-conference tilts. I say “comes into the weekend,” because the Big East schedule makers are very mean and paired up Marquette and Creighton as travel partners, and so the #6 ranked Bluejays will be in McDonough on Friday night. Let’s be honest: We’ll all be shocked if Georgetown’s not on 11 losses in their last 12 matches by the time first serve goes up on Sunday afternoon.
Mary Grace Goyena and Peyton Wilhite make for an interesting 1-2 punch on offense with both women averaging more than three kills and over 3.5 points per set. Quite obviously, this doesn’t make the Hoyas world-beaters, but it does mean that they have options available to them, and Kamryn Lee-Caracci averages nearly 2.3 kills per set, and hits .323 out of the middle. Karis Park anchors the defense with over four digs per set, while Lee-Caracci causes more problems at the net with just short of a block per set.