Toughest Non-Conference Schedules

In a previous post I showed that since 2004 when Self came to Kansas they have played the toughest SOS in the country. But clearly, a big part of that is playing in the Big 12 which has ranked close to or at the top of the toughest conferences in Div 1. So I thought I would look at only the non-conference part of the schedule excluding post-season tournaments. This analysis includes only the schedules non-conference games. It reflects the willingness of a team to play a tough schedule versus loading up the non-con schedule with a bunch of cupcakes. When you do this you would expect a few lower tier schools to rank pretty high in non-con schedule toughness since they tend to schedule a bunch of top-tier teams in order to get a high game check to fund their program. And this is exactly what you see. For instance, Bellarmine came onto the scene only a few years back and was forced to schedule as many top tier Power 5 teams as possible to fund their program. As a result, they have the 3rd average toughest schedule over the last 19 years (granted it is only for 2 seasons). A better example is Texas Southern. They have been around all 19 seasons and they have the 6th toughest SOS on average.

But sitting atop the entire pack is Kansas. KU has played 241 scheduled non-con games since 2004. And they have the toughest SOS of all schools in Div 1. That is a true testament to Self and Kansas for refusing to use their non-con schedule to run up a bunch of meaningless wins. .Below is the table of schools with top non-conference SOS over the last 19 seasons. Following that is the SOS Hall of Shame with the 20 worst SOS from Power 6 conference teams. How can Oregon State show their faces in public with their ridiculous habit of scheduling ultra cupcakes year in and year out?

Now for an interesting twist. If you look at Kansas SOS year by year you will see that they had the toughest non-con SOS only once. They ranked 2nd 4 times. But they also ranked as low as 113th in our 2008 championship season and 108th in 2007. The third table down is KU's non-conf SOS rank by year.

Finally, the last table is the No. 1 non-conf SOS team by year. You will see that 1 team really went out of their way to schedule a tough schedule for a 7 year stretch.