Weakest non-conference schedule ever?

[MUBasketball]

Is this the weakest non-conference schedule of all time? Mississippi State was terrible last year, so they obviously want wins...but yikes.

2013-14 Men’s Basketball Schedule
Prairie View A&M
Kennesaw State
Mississippi Valley State
at Utah State
Jackson State
Loyola
TCU (Big 12/SEC Challenge)
Southeastern Louisiana (Tupelo)
Florida A&M
Florida Gulf Coast
South Florida (Las Vegas Classic)
UNLV or Santa Clara (Las Vegas Classic)
Maryland Eastern-Shore

http://www.hailstate.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=16800&ATCLID=208575961

[MU/Panther]

Can't say ever, but this is very bad. UNLV & FGCU are the only two tourney teams on that list.

[MKE_GoldenEagleFan]

They are rebuilding big time right now, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

[ziggysfryboy]

Jim Boeheim is green with envy right now.

[Gato78]

Boeheim isn't envious, he is laughing. Whining Jimmy would never allow a road game in the OOC.

[unclejohn]

About Kevin O'Neill's second year, we played an even worse OOC schedule. But this is terrible.

[Orlando]

About Kevin O'Neill's second year, we played an even worse OOC schedule. But this is terrible.

On the contrary, Kevin O'Neil's second year non conference schedule included:

@Duke
@Kansas
Wisconsin
@Michigan
Oklahoma State
Virginia
@DePaul
DePaul
@Notre Dame
Notere Dame
@NC State

That could have been one of the harderst nonconference schedules in the history of college basketball. I am not trying to be confrontational. I am sure that you were thinking of one of O'Neill's other years. The only reason I responded to this, is because I remember the carnage so vividly. We only won one of those games. Wisconsin.

Nice opening two games. At Duke and at Kansas. They played each other for the title that year.

[unclejohn]

No, you are right. I got the years mixed up. As it always happens, O'Neill's first year, he coached the players the Piano Man left behind. So his second year was his first year with his own recruits, and the schedule was a killer. The first two games of the year were on the road against the teams that played in the national championship game.

But O'Neill responded to that by deciding that the team needed an easier schedule the following year so that they could get some confidence. As a result, they played every dog team south of the Yukon. I recall Houston Baptist, Mississippi Valley State, and Bethune Cookman. I also recall that somebody wrote a snarky article in the local paper and announced that Marquette had a non-conference schedule about in the bottom five in the country. I recall Kevin in one of his crazily courageous postgame call-in shows admitting that the games were no fun to watch, but pointing out that the team needed the money.

The problem even dragged into the next year. Marquette tried to improve its schedule and put together one that was pretty good on paper. It had the usual share of dogs, but it also had some decent looking opponents. We had Ohio State at home. They had been a Final Four team a couple years earlier. But that year, they fell apart and won about five games all year. We had Dayton, who we had played for years. They started the season off attracting attention as the unluckiest team in the country, losing their first three or four games against ranked teams on last-second shots and overtime. By the time they reached Milwaukee, however, they had collapsed and were 0-10 or something. We played Fordham on the road, and they were good enough to have beaten St. John's that year when St. John's was still really good. But unfortunately, that was the only good win on their resume. So three teams that looked good on paper turned into three wins against terrible teams, which combined with the wins in against the usual selection of buy wins meant about seven wins against weak teams. The fact that the schedule had been so weak the year before only made it look like it was intended that way.

So scheduling can be a tricky thing, but it is dangerous to get a rep for scheduling bunnies.