Marquette Volleyball Preview: vs DePaul

Last week, we found out that Marquette would have a surprise bonus to Senior Night.  We knew all along that Lindsey Gosh was participating in her final season of eligibility with the Golden Eagles, but Courtney Kintzel was a new addition.  The redshirt junior is in her first season at MU after transferring from Northern Iowa, but it appears she'll forgo her final season of eligibility.

This isn't entirely surprising.  I mean, I'm impressed that she has enough credits that transferred from UNI to be able to wrap up her degree now.  But she is in her fourth year in college, and Kintzel did miss 15 matches this season before reappearing with one of Stone Cold Steve Austin's knee braces on her right leg.  Take into account that we don't actually know what Kintzel's scholarship status is, given that the NCAA limits volleyball to just 12 scholarship players and Marquette has 16 players on the roster, and you can't blame her for opting out of one more go-round.

As far as the team and the post season goes, Marquette will be either the two or three seed in the Big East tournament.  That gets started next week Friday at the McGuire Center, and regardless of how Marquette's seeding shakes out, they'll be playing Seton Hall in the semifinals.  That ought to be a fun time given how their first two matches this season went, but it also doesn't matter whether Marquette is the 2 or the 3, as they'll have home court advantage regardless.

Big East Match #18: vs DePaul (3-26, 1-16)

When: Saturday, November 22, 2014, at 6pm Central
Where: Al McGuire Center
Audio/Visual: Free video streaming & live stats.
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Twitter Updates: @MarquetteVB

The Blue Demons are bad.  As in "Can't beat Providence at home after winning in Rhode Island" bad.  As in "lost 15 straight and 23 of 24" bad.

Well, maybe that's actually being too harsh on DePaul.  Six of those 23 losses, including four of the last five, have been in five sets.  If there's one thing I like to complain about, it's how terribly dumb the 15 point fifth set is.  Maybe DePaul is actually rounding into shape but are getting screwed over by the crapshoot that is being able to take a 15-13 lead midway through the other four sets of a match.

Or, maybe, they just allow the other team to land kills way too much.  DePaul is last in the Big East in opponent's hitting percentage, allowing their foes to convert attacks into kills at a rate of 26.7%.  Their offense isn't great, either, with a team hitting percentage of .195, the seventh best mark in the ten team league.

Saige Gallop leads the DePaul attack with 3.16 kills/set, good enough for 9th place in the Big East.  However, when Marquette and DePaul tangled earlier this season, Gallop was held to just eight kills in three sets.  In that match in Lincoln Park, it was Callie Huebner, who has only played in about half of the Blue Demons' sets this season, who led DePaul with 10 kills on 25 attacks.  No one on the roster averages a block per set, although Randi Leath (0.96) comes close.  Colleen Smith does what she can with this bunch of attackers (8.44 assists/set), while Madison, WI, native Lexi Chanos has a surprisingly low team lead in digs at 3.16 per set.