Lee Volker and Abbey Cracknell went through Senior Night festivities for the Marquette women’s basketball team last season.
They didn’t know at the time that they would be back again for the 2025-26 season, though they were working on it. Volker and Cracknell were both granted extra seasons by the NCAA, and now they get the chance to have a second Senior Night.
Advertisement
Their return is an extra layer to a unique story in college basketball: The Golden Eagles return every player from last season’s roster – the only team in the country that can say that – plus added a sharpshooting transfer in DePere native Jordan Meulemans and two freshmen.
In the age of the transfer portal, that kind of continuity is a testament to the culture that MU head coach Cara Consuegra has built heading into her second season at MU.
“We wanted to make sure we gave our kids a great experience,” Consuegra said. “And we did that really well.
“Our players also allowed us to do that. They bought in.”
Lee Volker is in her third season at Marquette, but she also spent two seasons at Duke.
Lee Volker played first two seasons at Duke
Of course, there was no way to know for sure if the NCAA would grant the waiver requests for Volker and Cracknell.
Advertisement
Volker played her first two seasons at Duke, but she stepped away from the team in December of her sophomore year for personal reasons. She petitioned the NCAA to get that season back.
“This was something that happened at Duke,” Consuegra told the Journal Sentinel in the summer. “I’m not really involved in it but supported her through it as we could. A lot of that she was kind of doing on her own.”
MU decided to go through with Senior Day just in case the waiver wasn’t approved. But during the postseason Volker finally got the news she wanted.
The Golden Eagles get back one of the best players in the Big East. Volker averaged 12.6 points, 4.6 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.5 steals per game last season and earned second-team all-league honors.
Advertisement
“I was really thankful to be able to have the extra year, but it was kind like a heavy weight,” Volker said. “So I’m really happy to have this extra year and be a little lighter and just be able to play and not worry about it.”
Abbey Cracknell spent two seasons at a junior college before coming to Marquette.
Abbey Cracknell got NCAA waiver because of JUCO ruling
The situation was a little different for Cracknell, a native of Australia.
She spent two seasons at Gulf Coast State College in Florida. After a court ruling, the NCAA started granting waivers for junior college players to get additional seasons in Division I, and Cracknell applied.
“I kind of roughly knew about it in December, but they hadn’t made a specific ruling,” Cracknell said. “I hadn’t heard anything certain about getting it back.”
Advertisement
In a funny twist of fate, Cracknell’s approval came the day before Senior Night.
Cracknell pondered her future.
“I kind of took a week after the season, just thinking about what I wanted to do next in my life and I really wasn’t quite sure,” she said. “I felt like basketball and getting my MBA was the best option for me. Marquette has a really good MBA program, so it was kind of hard to pass up the opportunity to get an education and also be a part of the culture we’ve built here.”
Consuegra kept two scholarship slots open and welcomed back both veterans. MU had used just 12 of the allotted 15 slots in her first season.
Advertisement
“Abbey is our best leader by far,” Consuegra said. “So having her back to lead, she’s one of the few kids on our team that will say the hard things to her teammates. And that is an extremely valuable characteristic that she has.
“Lee is also a really great leader and has a lot of experience. So when you add those two together and they play well off of each other with their strengths and they’re able to keep our team focused on the right things.”
With everyone back and the new players, MU wants to build on its surprising season that led to Consuegra being named Big East co-coach of the year.
“I think we all have one common goal and that’s to get to the NCAA tournament,” MU junior Skylar Forbes said. “All of us are super deeply rooted in that.
“We just want to show up and be the best we can every day.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Marquette’s Lee Volker and Abbey Cracknell got extra seasons from NCAA
