Comparing The Non-Conference Schedule To Years Past

Marquette has finished announcing all of the non-conference games on the 2012-13 schedule. For the last two years, we took a look at the schedule in light of the final KenPom.com rankings of the teams in the previous season and compared it to the previous seasons under Buzz Williams.

If that doesn't sound like an idea for a recurring feature, I don't know what does.

So here's what we calculated on the first five years of Buzz Williams' tenure as head coach at Marquette. "Lowest" refers to the best ranked team and "highest" refers to the worst ranked team. Any games not preset on the schedule (namely tournament games that aren't known until after MU wins or loses) are not counted.

2008-09 Season:
Lowest ranked team: Wisconsin (5)
Highest ranked team: Houston Baptist (342, one higher than KP's worst team)
Average of MU's 13 opponents: 178.6
Median Opponent Ranking: 185

2009-10 Season:
Low: Xavier (20)
High: South Dakota (345, one higher than KP's worst team)
Average of MU's 10 opponents: 216
Median Opponent Ranking: 257

2010-11 Season:
Low: Duke (1)
High: Mississippi Valley State (326 of 347 teams)
Average of MU's 12 opponents: 185.9
Median Opponent Ranking: 207

2011-12 Season:
Low: Wisconsin (7)
High: Norfolk State (302 of 345 teams)
Average of MU's 11 opponents: 151.8
Median Opponent Ranking: 156

2012-13 Season:
Low: Ohio State (2)
High: UMBC (339 out of 345 teams)
Average of MU's 10 opponents: 163.4
Median Opponent Ranking: 176.5

This is going to start getting awfully long if we keep every year in there, so this will probably be the last time we see the numbers on that 2009-10 season in here. A five year retrospective window on schedules will work just fine for everyone, I think.

Anyway. I'm sure you're wondering how this year's non-conference schedule holds up to the test.

2013-14 Season:
Low: Ohio State (6)
High: Grambling State (347 out of 347 teams)
Average of MU's 10 opponents: 176.5
Median Opponent Ranking: 207

And there you have it. Seems kind of similar to the first Sweet 16 season as far as average and median goes. That kind of makes sense when you think about it. There's a lot to be excited about regarding this team, but there's a lot of question marks as well, just like there was back in the summer of 2010.

We'll wrap things up with a poll asking you, our beloved readers, which non-conference game you're most looking forward to. In fairness to the other games, we've removed the Wisconsin game from the poll because, let's be honest, that would win the poll in a landslide.