That’s what happens when you haven’t given the voters a reason to trust you, even when you record two wins.
Until which point Marquette volleyball beats a top 25 team, they’re going to be subject to the whims of the AVCA top 25 poll voters.
That was proved to be the case on Monday, when the new poll came out and the Golden Eagles had fallen backwards from where they were a week ago. Last week, it was 34 points and a standing as the unofficial #27 team in the country. This week, with two wins over sub-75 RPI teams, it’s unofficially #30 on just 23 points worth of votes. Part of the drop in the ranking is the mere fact that the voters broke up the 25th place tie that existed last week, but the drop is more than just one spot. MU falls inbetween UCF with 29 points and James Madison with 18 points this time around.
While Wisconsin is still the #1 team in the poll and the best ranked team on Marquette’s schedule this season, their hold on the top spot is slipping. The Badgers picked up 58 first place votes with six going to Nebraska. A week ago, Wisconsin had all but two of the #1 votes.
Oregon stays steady at #6, same for Pitt at #8. Tennessee is up two spots this week to 312, while Creighton falls five spots to #16 after losing in five sets to Xavier over the weekend. Purdue is one spot behind the Bluejays at #17, which is a two spot improvement for the Boilermakers. Kansas suffered a drop as well this time out, going down two spots to #19, but Dayton bumped up two spots to #21.
Western Kentucky falls out of that tie for #25, slipping to the unofficial #27 spot with 92 points this week. They’re the only team on Marquette’s schedule joining the Golden Eagles in the Receiving Votes area.
Marquette won’t get a chance to make a big impression on the voters this week when they head out east for a pair of matches as their two opponents have a combined record of 11-17 right now, but they will get the opportunity to move above .500 for the first time since the opening weekend of the season. The Golden Eagles will face UConn on Saturday in Storrs, followed by a visit to Providence on Sunday. Both matches will start at Noon Central time, and FloSports will be streaming both.
You can check out the entire top 25 right here.