There are certain steps that a team takes to get to the next level and it usually involves beating a rival that has gotten the upper hand over an extended period of time. The general process of taking over a conference or a league is to dethrone an elite team in order to be placed in that category.
Until that point comes, the team sits waiting to climb that next step towards conference elitism.
This is the case for the No. 7 seed Golden Eagles who are looking for a win against No. 2 seed Louisville in the first round of the Big East Championship at 5 p.m. Friday.
Marquette is 3-15 all-time against the Cardinals and head coach Pati Rolf is 0-5 against Louisville, including two losses in the Conference USA tournament the previous two seasons. Last season the Golden Eagles made it all the way to the C-USA championship game before losing to Louisville 0-3 (30-24, 30-22, 30-24). In the match, Louisville — ranked No. 20 in the nation at the time — out-hit the Golden Eagles 58-53 and the Golden Eagles only totaled one block for the three game match.
"The biggest thing last year was to get to conference final and whatever happens happened," Rolf said. "This year we are capable of playing at a level of not only playing with them, but getting past them. This year our players are bigger than last year and our match against them was pretty darn good. We are even stronger because our size increased. We have to keep our speed and accuracy up."
This season the Cardinals, ranked No. 7 in the country, improved on their dominance from years past. Louisville holds a share of the Big East regular season title with Notre Dame, but the Fighting Irish are the top seed in the tournament after defeating Louisville 3-1 this season.
The Cardinals are 25-1 overall on the season and are undefeated at home with an 11-0 record.
So what makes Louisville so dominant this season and a tough match for the Golden Eagles this weekend? Is it the fact that they have eight players over six feet tall? Could it have something to do with head coach Leonid Yelin who in nine years at Louisville has formed a record of 364-101? Could the difficulty of the task have something to do with the Big East tournament being held in Louisville, making Friday's first round game an unofficial home match for the Cardinals?
Maybe it's just a combination of the three.
"They are a very strong powerful team and in volleyball, size matters," Rolf said. "One thing they have is a winning tradition. It helps and can carry them through. I believe our team is stronger in terms of size and approaches the game more seriously in terms of winning.
"They have an aura about them. It's unfortunate because young teams hope to play with them as opposed to beating them. The number of times we played them so close, we want to do something better than just have a good match. We want to start game one and beat them and we are determined we are going to put up a better fight."
The center of the Cardinals attack is Lena Ustymenko. The senior leads the team in kills, averaging a little over five kills a game. Ustymenko also leads the team in digs per game, averaging nearly three a game.
If anything, the Golden Eagles know what they are getting into when they face Louisville, having played them last weekend in a 3-1 loss. The smoke and mirrors show that another Big East team might produce will not be there with Louisville because of the two teams' history.
"We were able to watch film on our game against them and see what works and what didn't work," said senior libero Caitie O'Brien. "We had a better feel of what we need to do to beat them.
"They have a couple of heavy hitters that pound the ball and other hitters that see the floor and their defense is pretty impressive. It is a combination of size and skill level."
The winner of the match will take on the winner of the Syracuse versus Pittsburgh game in the second round of the tournament Saturday.