The drama over whether or not Marquette volleyball had done enough to earn an at-large bid to the 2025 NCAA tournament did not last very long on Sunday evening. The Golden Eagles were the 14th team announced in the bracket, setting them up with a first round match against #7 seed Western Kentucky. That match will be on Friday, December 5th, and it will be hosted by the University of Louisville, who double as one half of MU’s potential second round opponents as well. If Marquette can beat the Hilltoppers — more on that in a second — then they will face either the hosting Cardinals or Loyola Chicago in the next round of the 64 team national championship event.
Marquette’s match against Western Kentucky is scheduled for 3pm Central on Friday. If you’re local to Louisville, then you’re looking to head over to L&N Federal Credit Union Arena, which is UL’s volleyball-specific venue on campus. The Louisville/Loyola Chicago contest is at 5:30 Central or 30 minutes after Marquette is finished, whichever is later.
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Western Kentucky earned their way into the NCAA tournament field by way of a 3-2 win over FIU in the Conference USA tournament championship. It is the third straight CUSA tournament title for the Hilltoppers, who enter NCAA play with a record of 27-5 after going 15-1 in the Conference USA regular season. That lone regular season loss in the conference came on October 24th at home against UTEP, who also qualified for the NCAA field as an at-large team and earned a #6 seed in the Texas region side of the bracket. WKU has won 10 straight matches heading into Friday, which includes coming back on October 25th and sweeping UTEP as CUSA went with a “travel & play two” format this season.
The other four losses for Western Kentucky this season? At #6 Louisville, at home against Vanderbilt, at home against Drake….. and at Marquette, as the Golden Eagles swept the Hilltoppers, 3-0. That was an interesting weekend in terms of results as that was WKU’s second match of the day after beating then-#25 Dayton earlier in the day. However, Marquette never got a chance to play Dayton themselves, as that was also the weekend when Marquette men’s lacrosse players Scott Michaud & Noah Snyder were killed in a traffic accident and all remaining home contests that weekend were canceled. That also meant that WKU didn’t get a chance to play Buffalo as part of the event that Marquette was hosting.
Elsewhere in the Big East, Creighton earned a #3 seed in the NCAA tournament after winning the league’s regular season and conference tournament championships. They will face Northern Colorado as the host institution for the opening weekend on Thursday. Xavier joins Marquette and Creighton in the tournament, giving the Big East three bids to the field of 64 for the first time since 2019. Xavier is a #8 seed, and they will head to a first & second round pod hosted by #1 seed Pitt to face Michigan in the first round on Friday.
Villanova was listed as First Four Out of the tournament field. ESPN’s broadcasting crew specifically pointed at the Wildcats’ 20-8 record and said that their strength of schedule wasn’t enough to get them into the field. For comparison’s sake, 17-10 Marquette went 1-6 against top 25 RPI opponents and 4-2 against teams at #26-50. Villanova? 0-5 and 1-0. Villanova’s only top 50 victory was when they hosted Marquette, and their only other top 70 win came in a five set victory against #57 Wichita State on a neutral floor. You have to wonder if Villanova and their #37 RPI got left out of the field nearly exclusively because of their loss to #149 DePaul one day before beating Marquette.
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I don’t have confirmation as to the television situation for the Marquette/Western Kentucky match right now, but it’s going to be through ESPN one way or another. I’d lean towards ESPN+ being the solution, but keep an eye out to be sure.
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