MU, Al McGuire Center set for NCAA
It’s been a memorable season for the Marquette volleyball team.
The Golden Eagles are ranked No. 15, their loftiest status ever in the AVCA coaches poll. They had their first sellout at the Al McGuire Center, with 3,805 fans watching the match against Wisconsin in September.
Biggest of all, MU became a ranked seed for the first time in the NCAA tournament and will host matches in the first two rounds.
The Golden Eagles (26-6) face High Point (21-9) in the opening round at 7 p.m Friday. Illinois State and Cincinnati play in the first match at 4:30 p.m. The winners square off at 7 p.m. Saturday.
And yes, the Al McGuire Center will be open for business after a car slammed into the building last week.
“Marquette has been really good this week about extra effort to make sure this is a good experience,” MU head coach Ryan Theis said. “The team worked really hard to do it (get homecourt advantage), but people put us in a good position to do that.
“And then this happens, the car goes through, and everybody keeps doing the effort. It’s been a trying season that way – a lot of effort involved.”
The Golden Eagles are in the NCAA tournament for the eighth straight season, the last five with Theis.
The coach knew he had a strong team returning and scheduled aggressively with an eye toward getting a ranked seed in the tournament.
MU fell to ninth-ranked Creighton in the Big East championship match last Saturday, but Theis is pleased with the way his team is playing.
“We’re awfully good in the serve pass,” Theis said. “We grade passing on a four-point scale ... and we look at us versus our opponent in that and we win almost every time.
“We have three passers across that are all good (Hope Werch, Anna Haak and Martha Konovodoff) that when you serve it, there’s a chance we’re going to pass it relatively well. And so our first touches are pretty good from service line and the passing perspective.
“So not a lot of teams can beat us at that, which is why we are in every game. Even the matches we’ve lost, that’s why we’re in them because we can do that skill at a high level.”
Theis also has junior outside hitter Allie Barber, a former Cedarburg standout who was the Big East player of the year last season and was a unanimous all-conference pick this year with 439 kills.
That’s pretty amazing for a player who came to MU as a middle blocker. She planned to redshirt her freshman season, but the Golden Eagles staff noticed her killing skills in practice and soon transitioned her to the outside.
“As a middle, most of the sets you get are pretty perfect,” Barber said “So on the outside I had to get used to balls that don’t come from the setter and aren’t necessarily in comfortable positions.
“And then not blocking every ball, that means I had to be there in off-blocker situations and help pick up tips and that kind of stuff. It probably took me a solid half a year to get used to where I needed to be there to help my team.”
The team has clicked with Barber on the outside over the past three seasons. The hard work culminated with seeing the Golden Eagles earn the NCAA tournament seeding on the selection show.
“I kind of screamed and put both hands in the air,” Barber said. “It was crazy. I saw a picture of all of us celebrating after, it was just so fun to see everyone’s reactions. They were all different, from surprise to complete excitement and everything between.”
Now Barber wants to take the next step after first-round exits in her first two NCAA tournaments. Doing it in front of her family and the home fans would make it even more special.
“It would mean so much just to get over the hump,” Barber said. “We know we can do it.”