The Big East announced the results of the preseason coaches' poll for women's volleyball today. Marquette was picked to finish second while receiving one first place vote. Louisville picked up 12 first place votes after winning their first regular season title in 2011. Notre Dame finished third in the balloting and Cincinnati ended up fourth, but still landed a first place vote.
Marquette senior middle hitter Danielle Carlson, a All-Big East First Team selection a year ago, was a unanimous selection to the 2012 preseason All-Big East Team by all 13 coaches not named Bond Shymansky, as coaches can't vote for their own players. Fellow senior and right side hitter Holly Mertens joins Carlson on the all conference team after being named to the 2011 Big East All-Tournament team.
Louisville senior outside hitter Lola Arslanbekova was the unanimous choice as 2012 preseason Player Of The Year and was one of four unanimous choices for the all-conference team along with Carlson, Cincinnati senior middle blocker Jordanne Scott and Louisville junior outside hitter Emily Juhl.
Hit the jump, and we'll get to the full list of honorees, and we'll see how well I did on my attempt to predict the coaches' votes.
As it turns out, I did a pretty good job predicting the team. As I had said in my prediction, Arslanbekova was the easy choice for preseason Player Of The Year after earning that honor in 2011 and following it with the postseason version as well. All told, I was correct on nine of my 12 picks, and considering that one of my misses was Holly Mertens, I really can't complain.
Here's the official list, with asterisks marking unanimous choices.
BIG EAST Preseason Player of the Year
* Lola Arslanbekova, Louisville, Sr., OH
All-BIG EAST Preseason Team
* Jordanne Scott, Cincinnati, Sr., MB/RS
* Lola Arslanbekova, Louisville, Sr., OH
* Emily Juhl, Louisville, Jr., OH
Gwen Rucker, Louisville, Sr., MH
* Danielle Carlson, Marquette Sr., MH
Holly Mertens, Marquette, RS-Sr., RS
Jeni Houser, Notre Dame, So., RS
Monica Wignot, Pittsburgh, Jr., OH
Shelby Manthorpe, Seton Hall, So, S
Samantha Hinz, Syracuse, Sr., MB
Lindsay McCabe, Syracuse, Jr., MB
Valerie El Houssine, USF, So., OH