If you were worried about Marquette volleyball continuing their winning ways after the departure of Bond Shymansky to Iowa, worry no longer.
On Friday, the athletic department announced Ryan Theis as the fifth coach in Marquette volleyball history, and for the record, it's pronounced TICE. Theis comes to Marquette after six seasons as head coach at Ohio University, and all he did there was put the Bobcats in the NCAA tournament four times.
Yeah, we're going to be okay.
Theis has a career record of 144-54 to go along with three Mid-American Conference regular season championships and three MAC tournament championships. His Bobcats teams finished with a winning percentage lower than .677 just once, and in that season, they still finished 22-13, won the MAC tournament, and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament.
A native of Madison, WI, and a 2000 graduate of UW-Milwaukee, Theis was an assistant coach at the University of Florida, and I'm just going to drop in these paragraphs straight from the university release:
Theis spent two seasons at the University of Florida (2006-07) as offensive and recruiting coordinators. During his two seasons in Gainesville the Gators compiled an overall record of 59-6 (38-2 Southeastern Conference), won a pair of conference titles and advanced to the NCAA regional semifinals.
His first recruiting class at Florida, which comprised the Gators' freshman class in 2007, included two of the nation's top 30 high school players and rated among the 10 best classes in the country. Theis was also critical in the signing of the Gators' 2008 class, which featured four players in the national top 30, including the top overall recruit, and was named the nation's No. 1 class by PrepVolleyball.com.
So, he's a heck of a recruiter and a heck of a coach, too. Hard to beat that combo, kids.
Theis inherits the defending Big East regular season and tournament champions, along with 2013 Freshman of the Year Autumn Bailey, and a well stocked recruiting class, including MaxPreps All-Americans in outside hitter Alyssa Goehner and a MaxPrep All-American in setter Gabby Benda.
Welcome aboard, Coach Theis!