It’s a match against a top 15 opponent, it’s on national television, it’s between two teams standing at 2-0 in the Big East, it’s between the two teams projected to be at the top of the league standings in the preseason. As always, Marquette/Creighton is a big deal. This match will set the table for what the return bout in Omaha on November 1st will mean relative to the regular season title, and it’s a chance for both teams to pick up a rare quality win in Big East play. On that note, there’s probably
a little bit more on the line for Marquette, as the Golden Eagles are currently propping up their NCAA tournament profile on the wins over Florida and Western Kentucky. Creighton has two wins over Kansas — yes, they played the Jayhawks twice somehow — but they’ve got a few more ranked teams over there in the loss column to help build that strength of schedule up.
And yet, it’s a different Marquette/Creighton game. It can’t not be, seeing as this won’t be Ryan Theis and Kirsten Bernthal Booth trading chess moves for the first time since Theis took over on the Marquette sideline from Bond Shymansky. In fact, neither of those coaches will be there. Tom Mendoza is calling the shots for the Golden Eagles now, while Brian Rosen was elevated from his position on KBB’s bench to take over the program after she resigned. Two new faces experiencing making the calls in the big chair in this game for the first time ever, and Mendoza has an idea of what that’s like, as he’s a former KBB assistant, too.
Whatever does or doesn’t happen on Thursday, Marquette has to keep their head down for Sunday. Beat Creighton? Gotta make that stand up by beating DePaul. Lose to the Bluejays? Can’t let one loss turn into two, especially not against a Blue Demons team that comes into this weekend as part of the 2-0 tie atop the Big East standings. Yeah, maybe they won’t be 2-0 when they come to Milwaukee, as DePaul hosts Creighton Saturday in between MU’s two matches here. That doesn’t mean they’re not going to take a challenge for one of the top four spots in the standings, and you can’t hand them a win by taking your eye off the ball for whatever reason.
Big East Match #3: vs #14 Creighton Bluejays (9-5, 2-0 Big East)
Date: Thursday, October 2, 2025
Time: 6pm Central
Location: Al McGuire Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Television: FS1
Streaming: FoxSports.com/live
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 7-30 all time against Creighton. The Bluejays picked up the season sweep last year, snapping MU’s run of two straight victories at the McGuire Center, and then they tacked on a Big East tournament championship match victory, too.
Well, let’s just start with the obvious: How is Creighton #14 when they have five losses on the year? Easy: The losses are to the teams currently ranked #1, #2, #6, #16, #17, and two of the nine wins are over the team currently ranked #18. Mix in the fact that they started the year at #12 and there’s only so far you can fall when you start out the year 1-2 against three ranked opponents, all of whom were in the top 15 at the time, and that’s how you get the Bluejays where they are right now.
On top of that, Creighton hasn’t lost a set since losing to Nebraska in five sets on September 16th. That’s home sweeps of South Florida and then-#17 Kansas to wrap up non-conference play, then home sweeps of Xavier and Butler to open up Big East play. Heck, losing to Nebraska and beating Kansas in the same poll period (September 16 and 21) led to CU moving up two spots in the poll, #18 to #16. Obviously, beating #17 did a lot of heavy lifting there, because losing in five sets to the #1 team in the country isn’t going to hurt you all that much, possibly at all.
Ava Martin, the Big East Preseason Player of the Year, is Creighton’s top attacker, as I presume everyone expected. She’s averaging 3.96 kills per set to lead the team there and that ranks #3 in the Big East right now…. behind MU’s Natalie Ring leading the entire conference at 4.66/set. With 504 swings on the year, Martin has nearly twice as many attacks as anyone else on the Bluejays roster, which does lead to wondering how much of that is “Ava Martin is really good, give her the ball” and how much is “Creighton has played seven matches against ranked opponents, they’ve needed to rely on their best option a lot.” Martin has just three more swings than Jaya Johnson in CU’s two Big East matches, so it will be interesting to see how the Bluejays approach Marquette in that regard.
Annalea Maeder is handling the setting duties to the tune of 10.06 assists per set, making her one of three Big East setters in double digits to this point of the year. (Yes, MU’s Isabela Haggard is #1.) Averaging 10 assists a set is the sign of a team that runs attacks in system a lot and converts them well, and given that CU is doing that against a big pile of ranked opponents, it’s possible that Maeder is playing better than her stats tell us. 11.67 assists in six sets against Xavier and Butler last weekend say that, too.
On the defensive side, Creighton has two of the best blockers in the conference with Kiara Reinhardt (1.14/set) and Eloise Brandewie (1.13/set). Jaya Johnson isn’t that far behind them at 1.02 to power the Jays to the second best blocks/set average in the Big East. Those are the rejections they’re getting for points, and it stands to reason that Creighton’s work at the net is helping them get points in other ways — attacks missing wide or long to try to avoid the block, for example — as well. Marquette is second worst in the Big East in getting blocked for points at 2.34/set, so that’s a thing that the Golden Eagles are going to have to avoid in order to get a win here.
Big East Match #4: vs DePaul Blue Demons (9-4, 2-0 Big East)
Date: Sunday, October 5, 2025
Time: 3pm Central
Location: Al McGuire Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB
Marquette is 45-29 all time against DePaul, but that’s a little misleading. MU went 2-4 against the Blue Demons before officially becoming a Division 1 program in 1986. So it’s 43-25 in Division 1 since 1986, and even that’s misleading. Marquette is currently on a 28 match winning streak against DePaul dating all the way back to the 2009 season. In fairness to DePaul, things are getting closer, and by closer, I mean the Blue Demons have won at least one set in four of the last six meetings, including forcing things to five sets in Milwaukee last year.
DePaul comes into the weekend with three straight victories, including their Big East openers against UConn and Providence at home, and they’ve won seven of the last eight. We have to say that’s a pretty solid run for the team picked to finish sixth in the Big East this season, especially since the Huskies were picked to finish third. I’m not going to judge the quality of their wins — say, for example, over the 3-13 Milwaukee team that Marquette also beat — but I am going to note the Evollve rankings of the teams that DePaul has lost to already this year:
#153, #165, #247, #113
The #113 is UIC, and that’s their only loss in their last eight matches. Maybe they’ve figured something out over the last eight, seeing as the loss right before that one is the #247 against Lindenwood that went to five sets and DePaul was the team that had to win set #4 to get it to five.
DePaul is led by a pair of freshmen on the offensive end. Kendall Timme leads the squad with 3.51 kills per set, and she’s hitting .244. She has missed 11 sets on the year, but she’s appeared in every set for the last four matches, so we’ll presume she’s fine for this weekend. We can’t say the same thing for Morgan Stewart, who actually leads the team in total attacks, but because of her .153 hitting percentage, she’s only at 3.15 kills/set. Stewart only played in one of DePaul’s three sets against Providence, and she had only missed three other sets all year to that point. If she’s not available, that’s going to alter how the Blue Demons play just on pure volume of attacks if nothing else.
Sophomore Amanda Saeger appears to have seized full control of the setting. She has at least 30 assists in each of DePaul’s last seven matches after taking until the fifth match of the year to get there at all. The end result is that she’s averaging 8.22 assists per set for the year, but Saeger was at 10.29/set last weekend to start Big East play. Freshman Arden Billingsley was the one sharing time earlier in the year, but she had just one assist in each of last weekend’s matches while playing in just one set each time.
DePaul has a pair of standouts on the defensive end. Eva Hurrle is just short of five digs per set, and she ranks second in the Big East in that department. On the blocking side of things, Jade Dudley-Epps has 1.06 blocks per set, which is seventh best in the league. Low in terms of ranking, maybe, but anyone over a block per set is doing great. On that note: Katelynn Oxley is at 0.96 per set, so that’s a pretty solid combination of blockers at the net.
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