2025 Big East Volleyball Tournament
Semifinals
#1 Creighton Bluejays (23-5, 16-0 Big East) vs #4 Marquette Golden Eagles (17-9, 11-5 Big East)
Date: Saturday, November 22, 2025
Time: Noon Central
Location: Al McGuire Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: ESPN+ with Bob Brainerd and Michelle Wenzel on the call
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB
All-Time Series: Creighton leads, 32-7, including the last six in a row
Season Series: Creighton won, 2-0
Okay, let’s just say it: It would be in the best interest of the Big East for Creighton to tank this match.
If Marquette beats Creighton, that’s a major victory for MU’s NCAA
tournament hopes as the Golden Eagles go into the conference tournament with an RPI rank of #33. That would help propel Marquette towards an at-large berth at worst, and it gives MU a chance to play either Xavier or Villanova with the league’s automatic bid on the line. That would inch things closer to the Big East getting three bids into the NCAA field for the first time since 2019, and Xavier’s looking pretty safe with their RPI standing at #28. ESPN’s Charlie Creme has Marquette, Villanova, and Xavier all safely in the field of 64 as of Wednesday afternoon, safely as in “not Last Four In,” but I think it’s the best thing for the league for Creighton to sacrifice their auto-bid and gamble on getting to host the first two rounds of the tournament on the strength of the rest of their season to this point.
Barring the Bluejays doing The Right Thing For Business, Saturday’s Big East semifinal is going to come down to which Marquette shows up at the McGuire Center. Is it going to be the Golden Eagles that played the Bluejays at home on October 2nd, or the one that went to Omaha on November 1st?
The Marquette team that took the court at home hit .200, never scored more than 19 points in any of the three sets they played, and let Creighton hit .410 against them. MU couldn’t do a thing about Ava Martin in that match, as the 6’1” senior from Kansas crushed the Golden Eagles with a .514 hitting night on her way to 20 kills in just three sets. On the other side of the net, Hattie Bray was the only Marquette attacker to have a nice day, putting up 11 kills on 20 swings to hit .400. Elena Radeff and Natalie Ring were both sub-.170 in the match, and as we’ve said over and over again: This team isn’t good enough to survive multiple hitters having bad days, and that’s doubly true when you’re facing the #14 ranked team in the country at the time.
One month later, things were different. It didn’t look different to start with, as Creighton won the first set 25-11. But the Golden Eagles took the next two sets at D.J. Sokol Arena to put the #12 ranked Bluejays on their back foot and in trouble of losing a match for the first time since September 16th when they faced #1 Nebraska. Creighton seized control of the fourth set early, going up 5-1 and 7-2, to force a decisive fifth frame. For a moment, that match looked like Creighton was going to secure the 3-2 win somewhat quickly with a 9-5 lead, but a kill from Elena Radeff made it 11-10 Jays, and put a lot of doubt into the air. Yes, Creighton scored the final four points and won, but at the very least we can now, three weeks later, ask “what if?”
Marquette didn’t have any great performances in that match, but Natalie Ring, Elena Radeff, and Hattie Bray all hit at least .220, and they got a .316 on 19 swings in five sets from Emma Parks, too. Marquette still didn’t have a solution for Eva Martin, who had 30 kills and hit .464. Heck, they didn’t even have solutions for Kiara Reinhardt (12 kills on 26 swings, .346) or Jaya Johnson (13 on 29, .379), but there they were after a disaster of a first set, five points away from beating the #12 team in the country.
If that team shows up at the McGuire Center, maybe a surge of emotion from the home crowd in the building is enough to tilt that match in Marquette’s favor. Maybe.
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