Marquette Picked 2nd In Big East Preseason Volleyball Poll

With just days to go before Creighton opens up their 2025 campaign as part of the smattering of what amounts to Week 0 matches coming up on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday this weekend, the Big East announced the results of the league’s preseason poll for women’s volleyball on Thursday morning. YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles were picked to finish second in the conference this season, falling behind only Creighton. The Bluejays are a unanimous choice with all 10 possible first place votes and, since coaches can’t vote for their own team, CU head coach Brian Rosen’s vote went to Marquette.

10 votes at 10 points each has Creighton at 100 points. Marquette has 85 points, and since we know they got 10 points for Rosen’s vote, that means they picked up 75 points on the other nine ballots. 81 points would mean all nine coaches voted Marquette second behind the Bluejays, and well, we can all do math here. UConn earned 80 points and St. John’s landed at 79, so I think it’s safe to say that the coaches are mixed on where those three teams are in relation to each other.

With that said, their collective decision is exactly how I ordered the teams along with Villanova (who ended up with 63 points, well behind the Johnnies) in my top five. I put my order together pretty much entirely on who ended up on my seven-woman all-Big East team, but it seems that the coaches disagree at least a little bit as to who the best players in the league are heading into the season.

We did not disagree with the Preseason Player of the Year, as that went to Creighton’s Ava Martin. It’s not hard to vote for the leading returning attacker in the league who was also top 10 in hitting percentage. Of course, Martin was not a unanimous choice for POY, so not everyone is in agreement there.

Six of my seven choices for the preseason all-Big East team made it onto the league’s official preseason all-Big East team….. which includes a whopping 14 women thanks to at least one tie along the way there. Look. When your voting system has twice as many women as it should relative to the number of players announced as starters, you’ve screwed it up. Do a First Team and a Second Team if you want, but not this. What you get here is a 14 woman team with four unanimous choices, and now everyone knows who the REAL preseason all-conference team is.

One of those four unanimous choices? Marquette middle blocker Hattie Bray, who is coming off her third straight postseason all-conference honors. Here’s what the MU press release wrote about her:

Bray is a two-time AVCA All-Region selection, who was second in kills last season with 273 for an average of 2.39 per frame while hitting .331 (273-75-592). The unanimous all-league selection led the league as she hit .431 in conference play, and her 96 blocks led the Golden Eagles on the defensive end.

Marquette’s other preseason all-conference honoree is not setter Allie Korba, my lone miss on my all-Big East team, but is instead outside hitter Natalie Ring. Here’s the MU rundown on her:

Ring notched a .290 hitting average (244-61-611) with 2.62 kills per set and totaled 24 blocks on the season along with 57 digs. Ring was third among the Golden Eagles with 244 kills on the season. The junior also excelled in the classroom, earning BIG EAST All-Academic Team honors.

The Golden Eagles start the season, the first under the direction of head coach Tom Mendoza, next week Friday when they face Hawaii in their first match of the 2025 Rainbow Wahine Challenge in Honolulu. That contest is set to start at midnight Central time on Friday night, and Marquette will play San Diego and Utah State the next two days. Both Hawaii and San Diego were earning preseason top 25 votes from the AVCA poll, just as the Golden Eagles were.

You can read the entire Big East press release right here, the entire Marquette release right here, and my Big East picks right here.

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