QUESTION #1: What does Tom Mendoza’s version of Marquette volleyball look like?
This question has two different angles. There’s the very literal version of it, where we don’t really know who’s going to start for Marquette on opening night other than middle blocker Hattie Bray. Sure, it seems pretty obvious that Natalie Ring has the inside track on starting at outside hitter, and I’m pretty confident that Allie Korba was specifically brought in to start at setter for this year’s roster. But even if those two thoughts are correct, that’s still only three of the six starters plus
the libero spot filled out. There’s a lot of directions that Mendoza can go out of the gate, and quite honestly, it’s possible that we might not see the same starting seven in any of Marquette’s first three matches of the year out in Hawaii.
There’s also the more metaphysical/tactical version of the answer. How does Tom Mendoza approach coaching the game? Does he prefer a two setter rotation? Does he want to funnel attacks through one hitter, or does he want to spread things out? Does everyone need to be able to pass to a hitter, or are job duties going to be much more specific where the setter isn’t asked to work for digs and just be ready to be the second touch every time? Is serving for aces a big part of what he wants to do? How much of volleyball is technical precision and how much is raw talent, and if that’s the case, how much of what Mendoza does with his team this season is predicated on the fact that he’s mostly coaching players that Ryan Theis recruited to Marquette with his development goals in mind?
QUESTION #2: Is this an NCAA tournament team?
Well, the AVCA voters certainly think that’s the case heading into the season, as they’ve handed the Golden Eagles 94 points worth of preseason poll votes. That makes Marquette the unofficial #29 team in the country, and #29 in the RPI when we get to December should probably be good enough for an at-large berth at the very least.
As far as results go, as always, it’s probably going to come down to whether or not Marquette can stack quality wins in non-conference play while avoiding problems in Big East action. Four of Marquette’s first five opponents are earning top 25 votes in the AVCA preseason poll with Dayton starting the year at #24. A sweep of those four would set the Golden Eagles up incredibly well, but even a split would probably pay off. A sweep would definitely help out as Marquette is going to close non-conference play with three straight matches against preseason top 20 opponents, and it miiiight be hard to pull off a win there. If MU goes into Big East play at 7-5 or better, I think that’s going to be good enough for an at-large berth.
As far as Big East matches go…. well, there was a dividing line in the league with Marquette and Creighton in the top 20 of the RPI last year, four more teams between 70 and 100, which is totally fine, and then everyone else somewhere south of 190. If that’s how how things go again, MU can probably skate through a loss or two to one of those top 100 teams, but sub-150 losses will start sinking the Golden Eagles’ chances without any top line victories.
QUESTION #3: Is this a Big East championship team?
I went in this order because obviously Marquette can get to the NCAA field without winning the Big East title, it’s happened bunches of times over the past decade. Thus, winning a conference title is a bigger goal than making the field of 64 — weird how volleyball manages just fine at that number with over 340 Division 1 teams, huh? — because it’s slightly more complicated to do.
This year of all years, the answer to the question is bigger than “well, can they beat Creighton?” The fact of the matter is that both Marquette and Creighton have a new head coach this fall, as Kirsten Bernthal Booth stepped down in April and associate head coach Brian Rosen was promoted to the top job on the Bluejays’ bench. It’s hard to know what to expect from the Big East this fall with that much change over amongst the perennial top two teams in the conference, so anything could be on the table. It’s possible that we’ll have the first true race to a regular season title that doesn’t involve “how does the Marquette/Creighton season series shake out?” if both squads end up dropping a match or two to other league opponents.
Lots of things are up in the air as we don’t know what will change for both teams, although it’s a safe bet that things might be less different in Omaha than they are in Milwaukee because that’s a promotion situation instead of a replacement situation. Once Big East play rolls around, we’re going to get a pretty quick lesson about who the top dog in the league is this season, as Marquette hosting Creighton is the third conference match of the season for the Golden Eagles.
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