The Golden Eagles tangle with two teams that used to be on the league schedule back in the day, one of which is the #1 team in the country.
Yeah, so, Marquette volleyball is back under .500 on the season at 3-4 after losing to #7 Wisconsin earlier this week. Yep. It’s not ideal, but this is what happens when you keep sticking your hand in a wheat thresher of ranked opponents.
I do want to point out that Marquette is playing much better than their record would suggest, or at least there’s math to suggest that. I’m going to talk about Evollve for the first time this season, which is a very intriguing website partially brought to us by the same people that brought us Her Hoop Stats. It seems that Evollve was around last season, but I only caught wind of them heading into this year. With seven matches on the board, it seems that we’re right about in a window where we’re starting to get real numbers that tell us something legitimate about teams.
Marquette is #25 in the country in Evollve’s rankings.
They’re #20 in the country in Service Rating, which measures how likely you are at recording a point when you serve, and they’re #30 on the Receive side of that metric. Both numbers are adjusted for your level of competition…… and Marquette has played the fourth toughest schedule in the entire country. Hilariously, MU has played two of the three teams in front of them with Stanford and Wisconsin at #3 and #2 respectively….. and both of them have played #1 Texas. Everybody say hi to Creighton down there at #6.
One more thing I want to mention, and that’s where Marquette is in Evollve’s luck rating. How do you measure luck in volleyball, a sport that can sometimes be decided by fractions of an inch of contact with the ball, a sport that is notoriously hard to referee in live action? Simple Pythagorean expectation. What should your winning percentage be based on points won and points lost, and are you above or below that expectation? Above it? You’re lucky. Below it? You’re unlucky.
Right now, Marquette is unlucky, with an expectation 0.4 points above their actual winning percentage. That’s actually a middle of the road luck rating, #178 in the country…. but last year’s luck rating is instructive here. Last year, when Marquette lost every single non-conference match they played against a ranked team, Marquette finished the year at #335 in luck…. the 10th most unlucky team in the country.
The point of this is that while the record is not very fun, Marquette has been playing some pretty dang great volleyball this season. They’ve just been doing it against top ranked opponents over and over and over, and this weekend isn’t going to change that very much.
Speaking of this weekend, this is the final weekend of the non-conference schedule. There’s still a couple of one-off matches out there in the future, but next weekend is the first time Big East foes pop up on the schedule…… and a road trip to Creighton looms as the third match in the sequence. Even when league play starts, the tests don’t stop.
Match #8: vs East Carolina Pirates (7-1)
Date: Saturday, September 21, 2024
Time: 1pm Central
Location: Fitzgerald Field House, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Streaming: Lol, no, Pitt isn’t very nice like that
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB
Marquette is 4-0 all time against East Carolina. All four meetings came by way of the Conference USA schedule from 2001 through 2004 when both teams were in the league together. The Golden Eagles dropped just one set in those four contests.
Things were chugging right along this season for East Carolina right up until Tuesday night. They started off the season with seven straight wins, and the Pirates lost just four sets in that run. Then it was time to play a high major conference team, and they took a 3-0 road loss to South Carolina. To be clear, the Gamecocks might be pretty good, with just two losses on the year and one of them coming to then-#13 Kansas on a neutral floor. But still, that’s a heavy road block on the season for ECU. There might be another one come for the Pirates, as they’ll play Pitt on Friday night. Given the Panthers’ ranking at the moment, there’s a chance that ECU could be trying to avoid a third straight loss when they take the court against Marquette.
East Carolina wasn’t expected to do great things this season, as they were picked to finish fourth in the AAC and all three teams in front of them earned at least one first place vote. However, Angeles Alderete was named AAC Preseason Player of the Year, making her the first ECU player to ever earn that type of honor in any conference. Alderete is definitely the focal point of the Pirates’ offense, but she’s not their leader at the moment. The 6’0” junior from Florida is averaging 2.57 kills per set, which is just third on the team amongst regulars, and she’s only hitting .138. Part of all of that is her very not good outing against South Carolina where Alderete had just two kills on 16 swings and ultimately hit in the negative numbers. Still, even before that, she was at 2.80 and .152, so it’s not all the Gamecocks slowing her down.
Fran McBride is the leader on offense right now, getting 2.80 kills per set and hitting .356. The 6’3” grad student from Detroit is only third on the team in total attacks, and that’s not because she missed a match along the way somewhere. She’s well behind Alderete and Ellie Pate, who is chipping in 2.63 kills at a .232 clip as a sophomore.
It looks like ECU uses a two setter rotation with Payton Evenstad (5.89) and Mackenzie Jefferson (4.68) combining for more than 10 assists a set. 5’2” Turkish senior Lara Uyar leads in digs at 4.14 per set, while Marquette will have to be mindful of Carlia Northcross at the net. The 6’1” middle blocker from Memphis is averaging a block per set so far this season.
Match #9: at #1 Pittsburgh Panthers (7-0)
Date: Sunday, September 22, 2024
Time: 1pm Central
Location: Fitzgerald Field House, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Streaming: ACC Network Extra, which you should get if you have ACC Network on your cable subscription
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB
Marquette is 6-7 all time against Pitt. The first meeting actually came before MU joined the Big East, as the Panthers got a 3-0 win in 2003 in an event hosted by Duke. The Golden Eagles actually won the last five meetings between the two teams when they were both in the Big East, but Pitt got the win at the McGuire Center in a non-conference match last season when the Panthers were ranked #9 in the country.
Pitt was picked to finish first in the ACC this season, which is of particular note to Marquette. The team they beat out for that honor is Stanford, the squad that came into the McGuire Center already this season and cleaned the Golden Eagles out. The Panthers also started the year at #4 in the AVCA preseason poll, and they’ve only reinforced that point since then to rise to #1. They already have road wins over then-#10 Oregon and then-#23 USC, and back on Wednesday night, the Panthers made the case that they should be #1 in the country on Monday afternoon even if Marquette pulls the upset. Pitt swept #3 Penn State in a in-state rivalry match, and they did it pretty decisively. Penn State never hit better than .273 in any of the sets, while Pitt never hit worse than .365. I’ll just say this: Pitt has now won 21 straight sets, and since they play East Carolina on Friday, there’s a strong chance that streak is 24 by the time first serve against MU comes up. To a certain extent, taking a set from the Panthers will be an accomplishment on its own.
Pitt’s offense is going to mostly flow through Torrey Stafford and Olivia Babcock. Both women are averaging over four kills per set this season while no one else on the team is over three, and they’re both hitting over .270. The Golden Eagles are well aware of what both women can do to you, as the pair combined for 26 kills on just 47 swings in Milwaukee last season. That’s a combined hitting percentage of .489, so yeah, you get the idea.
Senior Rachel Fairbanks is doing the setting, and doing a pretty good job of it. 11.35 assists per set is quite great, one of the best in the country type of stuff with Texas A&M’s Maddie Waak leading the way at 11.83 as of Tuesday night. I’m curious if Pitt is making use of the two libero rule, as Emmy Klika is the digs leader at only 3.05 per set. That’s a little low for a dedicated libero, but the rules allow for you to dress and use two interchangeably now. Babcock and Ryla Jones are both averaging over 1.2 blocks per set this season, and Jones is a new face from last year for Marquette to deal with. The freshman from Maryland is leading the team with 1.33 stuffs per set.