Marquette Volleyball Slips To #8 In AVCA Poll

Given the wide range of results at the Redbird Classic over the weekend, I had no idea what to expect for Marquette volleyball in Monday’s brand new AVCA top 25 poll. They had to go the distance in all three matches, but they did get wins in two of them. The loss came to a ranked team, but that ranked team lost their other two matches of the weekend.

Kind of hard to get a read on the whole thing, and it seems that the AVCA voters collectively kind of threw their hands up and said “well, we have to ding them for the loss, right?” Thus, Marquette dips one spot this week, going from #7 last week to #8 in the new poll. This is fine. It’s still the first time that Marquette has ever been ranked #8 in the country, as they skipped over it going from #11 to #7, the program’s all-time best ranking.

The Golden Eagles earned 1,062 points this week, down 69 points from last week. Minnesota are the new #7 team in the country with 1,228 points, including one first place vote following Stanford’s first loss of the season. Wisconsin hold steady at #9 in the new poll, earning 1,049 points. A bit of a gap between Minnesota and Marquette as they flip spots from last week, but also not much space between the Golden Eagles and the Badgers.

Baylor maintain their spot as the highest ranked Marquette opponent in the poll, staying unbeaten and holding on at #5 in the country. Wisconsin also held their spot, while BYU moved up from #13 to #12. Creighton edged upwards, going from #17 to #15, while Illinois fell from #14 to #19 even with their win over Marquette. It’s reasonable to wonder if that win is what kept them in the poll this week.

Illinois State and UCF both benefited in a big way from the Redbird Classic, with ISU jumping up into the receiving votes category with 49 points this week and the Knights moving upwards towards the top 25 with 24 points. They are the unofficial #28 and #30 teams in the country this week respectively, and if they can keep stacking up wins going forward, that’s just going to make Marquette look better and better.

The Golden Eagles return to action this weekend with three home matches in two days. It’s Green Bay (7-2) on Friday night, followed by Saint Louis (6-3) and Northern Iowa (4-7) on Saturday morning and night respectively.

You can check out the full top 25 right here.