The Big East dropped the results of the 2026 volleyball preseason poll juuuuust in time before the regular season officially gets going on Friday thanks to the AVCA First Serve event at Fiserv Forum. The good news for Marquette is that junior transfer outside hitter Carson Tyler was voted to the preseason all-Big East team by the coaches in the league.
The medium news is that Tyler is the only Golden Eagle on the preseason all-conference team. With only five returning players and a whole mess of freshmen,
that’s not exactly surprising news, and so that’s why it’s medium news.
The not great news for Marquette is that the Golden Eagles were picked to finish third in the Big East this season. They finished with 82 points in the polling, falling four behind Villanova at 86. It’s worth noting that Creighton head coach Brian Rosen voted for Marquette, and we know that because the Bluejays got all 10 possible votes and because coaches can’t vote for their own players or teams in this poll.
Here’s where it gets a little bit whacky for you: Finishing third in the coaches’ poll is actually better than where I had Marquette in my picks. I slotted the Golden Eagles in at fourth just because there’s so much roster turnover at the McGuire Center. Villanova looks to be good — they’re getting preseason AVCA votes, as it turns out — and Xavier’s coming off an NCAA tournament bid and I’m sure they’d love to repeat that this year even if they lose two of their top three attackers. The coaches see it differently, and in this case, I’m happy to be wrong.
Elsewhere in the voting, the coaches tabbed Villanova’s Abby Harrell as the preseason player of the year. That’s the right pick if you’re sticking to returning players. I think there’s an argument for Carson Tyler since she was MAC Player of the Year last year, and I think Ayden Ames’ play at Texas a year ago opens the door for her to be the best player on Creighton’s roster this fall. The catch is that she plays middle blocker and given the usual trend for how that position works on the court, it might be a little bit hard to make the case for her as the MVP as the season goes along.
I kept to a seven woman team for my preseason All-Big East team because that’s the actual starting lineup for a team that you’d announce before a match. The league went in a different direction and announced a 13 woman all-conference team, although it seems like perhaps it was supposed to be just 12 because there was a tie in the voting somewhere. In any case, four of the 13 are unanimous picks, to which I say: Feels like we’re really close to “well, that’s the real preseason all-conference team there,” so why not do a First Team and a Second Team?
All seven of my picks turned up on the official all-BE team, including all four unanimous picks, so that helps make the point about whether or not we should be having a First Team and a Second Team or not. It is interesting to note that Abby Harrell won the election as preseason Player of the Year…. but somehow, she has lost the attention of the Big East coaches. She was a unanimous choice for All-Big East at the end of the 2025 season and she’s seemingly the obvious pick as the best returning player in the league…. but at least one of the 10 possible coaches didn’t have Harrell on their ballot for the best 12 in the conference. That’s wild stuff, man.
Marquette gets their season going coming up this Monday night when they head downtown to tangle with #2 Texas. Officially, that’s not a home game for the Golden Eagles even though it’s at Fiserv Forum, as it is the final match in the AVCA First Serve event. Xavier/Pitt is set for 5pm Central, and Marquette/Texas is schedule to start at 7pm Central with FS2 broadcasting both matches.
You can read the entire Big East press release on the preseason poll right here.
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