All Marquette volleyball can do now is sit and wait. There are no more matches to play, sets to win or kills to swing. Just seven days to brave.
The Golden Eagles lost their final chance to guarantee an NCAA tournament bid on Saturday, falling in three sets to top-seeded Creighton in the Big East tournament semifinals. The sweep means Marquette, which rests near the bubble at 33rd in the RPI after a season chock-full of both bid-clinching wins and bid-losing defeats, left its fates in the hands of the selection committee.
Losing to the Bluejays will not hurt the Golden Eagles’ resume — Creighton is No. 12 in the AVCA coaches poll and 6th in RPI — but a win would have sealed their hopes and started a dance party. Regardless, Marquette head coach Tom Mendoza is confident of Marquette’s chances.
“We’re solidly in the position that we’re in. We were playing tonight like we wanted to either improve or solidify our seeding,” Mendoza said after the Creighton game. “Or get another top 25 or 50 win. Or, honestly, just win the Big East tournament.
“So I think we’re in a good place, and hopefully we’ll learn from this experience.”
As self-assured as he may be, the fact remains the Golden Eagles have to endure a week of waiting before the NCAA tournament selection show next Sunday, Nov. 30, to know for sure. It’s a unique spot for the blue & gold to be in, for multiple reasons.
Normally Marquette has to wait only hours to find out if they would be dancing. But this year, because the Big East tournament was a week sooner than normal, that timeline was extended to seven entire days.
“It’s definitely interesting, because we haven’t had this experience before,” senior outside hitter Natalie Ring said. “We’ve always had the conference tournament right before the selection show, so it’ll be definitely different to have a week to wait.”
The longer wait is not the only difference, though. Marquette has seldom found itself this close to the edge of making it in the past decade.
But after damaging road losses at Georgetown — which was No. 148 in the RPI at the time of the game, and currently sits 129th — and Villanova, coupled with a home five set defeat to Ball State, the Golden Eagles finished the season 17-10 and 11-5 in Big East play.
Because of these blemishes, Marquette’s NCAA chances rely on its noteworthy sweeps over then-No. 15 Florida and Western Kentucky (No. 30 in the RPI), and its highest-RPI victory over Xavier at the end of the regular season. It also works in the Golden Eagles favor they dropped only frame across their last four matches before the Big East tournament — to the Musketeers — and looked to be playing their best volleyball when it mattered most.
“We’ve played a tough schedule, and we’ve gotten some wins against good teams,” Ring said. “We’ve had some top 25 we had some top 50 wins. We’ve put up good showings against top 10 teams like Creighton, so I think we’ve shown [we deserve to make it]. Hopefully the committee can agree with us, but we’ll see next week.”
Despite Marquette’s fickle play, ESPN women’s volleyball bracketologist Charlie Creme has it in the tournament. The Golden Eagles are approaching this week preparing as such, while the rest of the volleyball world’s dust gets settled.
“We got to go into it expecting to be in the NCAA tournament and preparing that way,” Ring said. “And just hope that the committee agrees with us.”
This article was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at jack.albright@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.