1. They are playing the 2 aforementioned legit games ONLY because they're part of prescheduled events.
2. They will be favored vs Indiana (not that it even matters)
3. "Power 5" is a football term and is essentially meaningless in basketball.
4. St Johns hasn't been much good in a long time.
5. and here's the reality:
Our OOC schedule
- N.Iowa (perennial quality team)
- @ Stanford (true road game, very legit oppponent)
- Portland (tourney on their home court, they stink but we had no say in scheduling them)
- Arkansas or Oklahoma (neutral vs very legit opponent)
- Davidson (in Charlotte, perennial quality team)
- @Tennessee (true road game, very legit opponent)
- Wofford (usually decent mid-major, but not much right now)
- Ohio State (quality opponent, neutral - CBS Classic)
- Tulane (decent in past, but probably not this season)
Moreover, you're comparing the opponents on who's favored? That's a crap criteria with two top-10 teams who will be favored over pretty much everybody. Come on.
Compare the quality of the opponents they scheduled on purpose and where the games are played.
Utah Valley?
Evansville?
Southern?
St. Francis?
El stinko. They are all worse than any team we scheduled on purpose.
Hell, outside of Furman it's a mid-major fail.
And one true road game they had a choice about? Again, typical dookie stuff.
Sorry, but your reasoning is flat off-base.
Thank you for the well-written response. A few counter points:
1. I hadn't factored in who the games were scheduled by. If that's what we're talking about then yes, there is likely to be a noticeable difference once we get our last 2 games figured out, although I'll still contend it's not huge. But as far as non-conference schedules in their entirety, I think the difficulty gap is minimal.
2. I used the term "power conference" to mean the P5 football conferences + the Big East. While it's not quite as clear a demarcation line as in football there is a pretty big drop off after those conferences, as there were only 2-3 at-large teams outside of that group last year. If you include the AAC especially now that Wichita St has joined those are really the "power conferences" for basketball. Outside of playing Gonzaga, UConn, or something I think it's fair to use the term. Anyway, my point was we play two semi-good teams on the road and they play one (plus Indiana in the challenge).
3. St. John's hasn't been good, but then neither have Stanford or Tennessee. I don't understand how you qualify them as "very legit" opponents. Stanford has made one NCAA tourney in the last 9 years, Tenn one in the last 6. We should beat all three of these teams, and so should Duke. Even on the road. And I know you're not a big Kenpom fan, but while Tenn was definitely the best of this bunch last year, he had St. John's as better than Stanford. College Reference also had St. John's higher in SRS. Stanford was really bad.
4. Otherwise you're mostly either looking at the tournament/challenge games or the non-power conference games. I'll go over the tournament/challenge games first:
CBS: Mich St vs Ohio State - Duke has a tougher game, no question
ACC/Big Challenge: vs Mich, @ Indiana - Duke has a tougher game
Phil Knight Tourney: Hard to say. We get Portland, then Ark/Okla, then maybe Mich State or Oregon. Duke gets Portland State (better than Portland last year per Kenpom), then Butler/Texas, then possibly Florida or Gonzaga.
Overall I think Duke has a tougher slate for these top-level nonconference games.
For the non-power conference games, you're right that I didn't look up how good they are. Perhaps our mid-majors are considerably better than Duke's. I don't think that is all that relevant though. Most of the time we just sweep through all of these home games anyway. Beating Davidson by 10 vs Furman by 26? Eh, yeah, shame on Duke for scheduling such a creampuff. But it's not all that material, so long as both teams get a win.
My revised conclusion after your good points: I still don't think Duke's schedule is easier then ours, pending the matchups from the PKI. The top games are still the most important, because those are the most likely for an elite team to lose (i.e. playing the 300th best team is worse than playing the 150th best team, but either way a top 10 team should run away with it at home). I probably underweighted playing top mid-majors like Davidson, but I think Duke has the two toughest non-conference matchups (vs Mich State, @ Indiana). They also are playing just as many true road games as us pending the last of the scheduling. I really don't think the typical criticisms apply this year. As MJ would say "This is Carolina Basketball". Let's see us add a Kansas, UK, or heck a Gonzaga rematch and then I'll be talking smack about how tough we're scheduling.
