If you’ll remember that I was a little bit surprised to find out that a Marquette volleyball team with so many newcomers was earning preseason top 25 votes. As it turns out, maybe the voters picked up on that as the first week of the regular season developed. Pushing then-#2 Texas to five sets before losing and falling to a Dayton team that was also in the receiving votes area of the poll was no way to earn the voters trust, and thus, here on the first Monday of the regular season, Marquette is no longer
earning top 25 votes in the AVCA poll.
Well, very specifically, we know that Marquette does not appear on two ballots. The AVCA only lists you if you appear on two, and there are seven teams that appear on just one ballot this week. It’s easily possible that MU is one of the seven there.
Stanford is now the top ranked team on Marquette’s schedule this season. The Cardinal rose from #5 in the preseason to #4 this week, right in time for MU to visit Palo Alto for a match. Wisconsin is right behind Stanford at #5, up one spot from the preseason as well.
Texas has fallen to #9 after losing to Arizona State, looking rough against Marquette, and then beating TCU and losing to #1 Nebraska at the Players Era Showcase in Las Vegas over the weekend. Good luck figuring out the Longhorns. Creighton rounds out the Marquette opponents in the top 10, as the Bluejays used a 2-1 record against ranked opponents in the opening weekend of the season to move up three spots to #10.
Believe it or not, that’s also it for Marquette opponents in the top 25 right now. Dayton picked up 25 points worth of votes to be the only team on the slate down in the receiving votes area. I suspect that Marquette would have Dayton’s 25 points if the Golden Eagles had beaten the Flyers.
Marquette returns to action this Saturday, when they head out to California for a pair of contests hosted by Stanford. First up is South Florida on Saturday, September 5, at 3pm Central, and then it’s the aforementioned #4 ranked Cardinal 24 hours later, still in Maples Pavilion.
You can check out the entire top 25 right here.
