The Golden Eagles are tasked with defeating the #2 ranked team in the AVCA poll if they want to reach the Elite Eight for the first time ever.
2024 NCAA Volleyball Tournament
Sweet 16
#5 Marquette Golden Eagles (25-8, 16-2 Big East) at #1 Penn State Nittany Lions (31-2, 19-1 Big Ten)
Date: Friday, December 13, 2024
Time: 2:30pm Central, probably. This is the second of two matches at Penn State following #2 Creighton and #3 Texas. If that match goes verrrrrry long, then MU/PSU will be delayed.
Location: Rec Hall, University Park, Pennsylvania
Television: ESPN2
Streaming: WatchESPN.com
Live Stats: The NCAA is still a bag of psychos on that issue, so have fun with NCAA.com. Maybe the official MU athletics app will have them, too?
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB
All Time Series: Penn State leads 1-0 after sweeping Marquette in an event hosted by Florida Gulf Coast in 2013. That was, of course, the same event as MU’s only other previous meeting with FGCU as mentioned in that NCAA tournament preview.
No matter what happens on Friday afternoon, Ryan Theis was right.
Getting to the third Sweet 16 in program history was the whole point of putting together the non-conference slate he assembled in each of the past two seasons. Getting the team, which has been mostly completely intact for each of the past three campaigns, ready to win a tough match in a tough spot like they did last week at #4 seed Utah was the idea behind the whole thing. Playing at Pitt and at Wisconsin, hosting Stanford and Kansas, getting used to playing those type of teams and getting used to playing those teams in their buildings was the goal. All of it helped Marquette know what it was like to be playing in front of nearly 2,300 hollering Utes fans, and all of it helped Marquette hold on to win in five sets and reach the Sweet 16 for the third time in program history.
The question for now is whether or not all of it was helpful in getting Marquette ready to do something that they’ve never done before. Beating Utah was the first time in program history that MU has ever defeated a seeded team that was hosting the match. MU’s previous two wins that sent them on to the Sweet 16 came by way of winning two matches at the Al McGuire Center. Now they pulled an upset, at least in the eyes of the selection committee. They broke through that barrier, so why not just keep on chugging and do it again?
The short answer is “because Penn State has lost just twice all season.”
In a weird coincidence, PSU’s two losses are to teams that beat Marquette and in (mostly) the same locations. Loss #1 was back on September 18th, when they fell in three sets to Pitt. Loss #2 didn’t come along until November 9th, when Wisconsin ran the Nittany Lions out of the Field House in Madison. That’s the (mostly) the same locations thing, as MU’s match at Madison was in the Kohl Center. I’m not kidding about the running PSU out thing, as Penn State tallied just 12 and 13 points in the second and third sets respectively. MU lost in four sets to the Badgers if you consider those kind of things important and never scored fewer than 16 points.
Still, it’s the other 31 matches this season that generate the hill for Marquette to climb on Friday. We can all look at MU’s ranks of #27 and #30 when Evollve measures probability of scoring a point when serving and when receiving respectively and say “oh, well, that’s pretty good.” Or rather, at least we can say that riiiiight up until we see that Penn State is #10 and #7 in those departments. And yes, that means that Penn State is better on the receiving end of things, which is the side that’s in direct opposition to MU serving the ball, and that’s the Golden Eagles’ better side.
Top attacker Jess Mruzik is coming off 21 kills in PSU’s 3-1 victory over North Carolina in the second round of the tournament. That’s a nice day for her, as Mruzik is averaging 4.20 kills per set this year on .254 hitting. She has about 350 more swings than anyone else on the roster, and that’s even while sitting out for five sets while playing in every match this season. #2 on that total swings list is fellow pin hitter Camryn Hannah, who averages 3.58 kills a set and connects at a nearly .300 clip.
Penn State doesn’t go to their middle blockers all that much on the offensive end of things, but Taylor Trammell and Maggie Mendelson do make the most of their chances. They’re both averaging over two kills a set with Trammell hitting .442 and Mendelson sitting at .319. MU will have to find a way to deal with Mendelson all match long, as she’s also using her 6’6” frame to tally up nearly 1.20 blocks per set this season.