Marquette has a chance to push themselves forward in the race for a Big East regular season title when they hit the road this weekend.
Both Marquette and St. John’s are 5-1 in Big East play through six matches, and that puts the Golden Eagles and the Red Storm into a three-way tie with Creighton for first place. MU lost to DePaul, St. John’s lost to Creighton, and Creighton lost to Marquette. It’s a road match at Carnesecca Arena, and nothing’s guaranteed on the road, but Marquette can issue the Johnnies
a second league play loss and thus create some separation at the top of the table. It’s nice to have full control of that opportunity, and it doesn’t hurt that the Red Storm have to turn around and play that same DePaul team that beat Marquette on Sunday right away thanks to the travel partner system. Of course, the Blue Demons aren’t in the tie for first place because they got beat in five sets by Georgetown last weekend, but that serves as a great reminder that you have to go out and play your best possible volleyball every match.
It’s a great time for Marquette to be doing that, and with three Golden Eagles not named Carson Tyler picking up Big East weekly awards on Monday, there’s definitely signs that MU is coming together as a complete squad right now. The Golden Eagles are in a situation where they can’t afford slips if they want to find their way to the NCAA tournament. The win over Creighton has done them a world of good, but Marquette is still only 2-5 against top 50 RPI opponents with just a home date against the Bluejays left in those categories for the rest of the season. As of Monday, Marquette is #55 in the RPI, and that’s not a great sign for their at-large hopes. Now, they were #75 the week before, so just beating top 100 teams like Villanova and Georgetown helped….. but Marquette doesn’t face top 100 opponents this weekend. Winning on the road will help no matter what, but losing will be a massive problem.
Analytics say that Marquette is a better team than their pure win-loss record says they are. Evollve has MU at #33 in the country as I write this on Wednesday, well above their RPI ranking. That’s probably because the Golden Eagles still have a top 40 strength of schedule, and that’s helping them out with Evollve ranking MU top 30 in serving points percentage and top 50 in receiving points percentage when you adjust both for level of competition.
The evidence suggests that Marquette is absolutely a tournament caliber team. They just have to prove that to the selection committee by stacking up wins, no matter who the opponent is.
Big East Match #7: at St. John’s Red Storm (15-4, 5-1 Big East)
Date: Friday, October 16, 2026
Time: 6pm Central
Location: Carnesecca Arena, Queens, New York
Streaming: ESPN+, although neither Marquette nor St. John’s actually want to link to it
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Marquette is 29-9 all time against St. John’s. The Golden Eagles have taken both sides of the season set in each of the past two years for a four match winning streak against the Red Storm. The series has been heavily tilted towards MU ever since St. John’s won four of the first five meetings between 2005 and 2009.
St. John’s comes into the weekend on a four match winning streak. They’ve been taking care of business since falling in four sets to Creighton in their second match of Big East action. It hasn’t been smooth sailing for them, as they’ve dropped at least one set in all four of the wins and needed extra points in the fifth set to beat Xavier to start their winning streak. The Johnnies have won the first set in all four matches, and they even swiped the first from the Bluejays before dropping the next three. If Marquette can start out strong, it could put the Red Storm into a bit of an uncomfortable spot.
This match is going to be a battle of the top attackers in the Big East this season. Marquette’s Carson Tyler leads all players with 4.21 kills/set, but Carola Tesoro is not just the only other player in the league north of 4.0, but the only other player north of 3.7/set. We should probably get used to hearing that name as well, because the 6’0” Italian is a freshman this season and she’s hitting .262 as well. If the Golden Eagles’ block can drive STJ away from Tesoro, that’s probably going to be a big help. Lejla Hadziredzepovic is the Johnnies’ #2 attacker in both kills/set and total attacks on the year, but she’s down at 3.42/set. However, because she’s only hitting .185, the 6’3” Dayton transfer is just 11 swings behind Tesoro. St. John’s is going to try to get her lots of swings, and anything MU can do to encourage that could be a benefit to the Golden Eagles.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens at setter for St. John’s. Amanda Caputi is their leader in assists, but 1) she’s only averaging 6.34/set because they use a rotation anyway and 2) Caputi missed both matches last weekend. That led to Maggie Carcillo and Martina Capponcelli playing the two sides of the setter rotation even though neither woman had played in every match up til last weekend the way that Caputi had. They were fine, getting 36 and 39 assists combined against Providence and Connecticut, but libero Rashanny Solano Smith — who leads the Big East in digs, by the way — was a big help with 19 assists across the two matches as well. Will Marquette see Caputi? What about STJ’s offense changes if she’s not in there?
Big East Match #8: at Seton Hall Pirates (8-10, 0-6 Big East)
Date: Saturday, October 17, 2026
Time: 4pm Central
Location: Walsh Gym, South Orange, New Jersey
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Marquette is 28-5 all time against Seton Hall. The Golden Eagles come into the weekend carrying a 19 match winning streak against the Pirates that dates all the way back to a 3-0 win in Milwaukee in 2015. Seton Hall has taken at least one set from Marquette in the last three meetings in New Jersey, including last year’s 3-1 victory at Walsh.
It’s not just six straight losses for Seton Hall coming into the weekend and their home date with DePaul on Friday that could turn into a seventh Big East loss before MU even gets off the bus in South Orange. It’s seven straight going back to their non-conference finale against New Haven, and in that run, they’ve won just three sets. The Pirates took the second set from New Haven, Xavier, and UConn in those three matches before eventually taking the 3-1 loss. The UConn loss — their most recent match as well — is the more damning of the three 3-1 losses, as Seton Hall went out 25-14 in the fourth after letting the Huskies off the mat with a 24-21 lead that turned into a 26-24 loss in the third set.
Here’s a weird one for you: Setter Gwen Adler is the only Seton Hall player to appear in all 66 sets this season. Five Pirates have appeared in every match and, continuing the weirdness, not the same five Pirates have appeared in at least 60 sets. Daria Safian is one of the every match/60 sets players, and she’s SHU’s top attacker with 2.74 kills/set. All told, the Pirates have five women averaging at least two kills per set, but only Safian and Samantha Shelton have played in all 18 matches this season. Maddy Loiselle has missed one, Alonda Villanueva has missed three, and Hania Labanowska has just 20 sets played across nine matches this season. At the very least, all of the scattershot lineup situations being created here aren’t helping the Pirates build consistency as they fall further under .500 as league play goes along.
This isn’t really a criticism of head coach Shannon Thompson because put your players in positions to succeed, etc., etc., but using a setter rotation is pulling Seton Hall’s most consistent player off the floor. Adler averages just 6.71 assists per set because she’s in a rotation — most of the time! — with Emilee Fuller, who is at 3.05 helpers per set. I say most of the time because Fuller has only played in 55 sets this season. She’s appeared in every match, but sometimes the Pirates just keep it running with Adler. There’s at least evidence that lineup consistency isn’t helping Seton Hall, and on top of that, Adler doesn’t play all of the time, and even then, they don’t seem to stick to that all of the time.
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