Marquette Drops Out Of The AVCA Top 25

Marquette volleyball went 3-0 over the weekend, running their record to 6-0 on the season. MU was tied for #25 in the AVCA top 25 poll last week, so you would think that winning another three matches would be enough to keep the Golden Eagles in the top 25 this week.

You would be wrong.

Marquette snagged 99 points in this week’s poll, which puts them exactly one spot outside the top 25 in the new poll that was released on Monday afternoon. San Diego is the new number 25 team in the country this week, dropping down from #22 a week ago, and the Toreros earned 112 points. Marquette was in no danger of being in any other spot than unofficially #26 this week, as Rice is the team next behind them in the receiving votes area and they have 13 points.

Tennessee and Creighton are two new teams in the poll, so they’re the two teams responsible for Marquette dropping out. Well, that and the fact that there were 26 teams in the top 25 last week thanks to Marquette tying with Washington State for the 25th spot in the poll. The odds of that happening two weeks in a row was pretty low, so that was always going to have a potential impact on MU’s standing in the poll.

The Bluejays are, of course, Marquette’s only Big East foe earning points at all this week. Creighton swept then-#3 Kentucky over the weekend, and the poll voters rewarded them with 548 points. That was good enough to go from receiving votes last week to #19 in the top 25 this week.

Kentucky is Marquette’s next opponent, and yes, they slipped in the poll as a result of the loss to Creighton. They went from #3 to #8, so they’ll still be a top 10 team when they get to Milwaukee on Saturday. Sunday’s opponent is Wisconsin, and they stayed steady at #2 this week. They picked up nine first place votes along the way, making them the only team other than #1 Texas to earn first place votes this week.

You can check out the entire top 25 right here.