For all of the posts in this series, visit the 2018-19 Non-Conference Scheduling Hub.

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Ranking The Teams

In 2017, South Dakota State, who won the Summit championship as a No. 4 seed who finished at .500 in the league and 18-16 overall, earned a 16 seed in the NCAA—the lowest seed the conference tournament champ earned since 2006. One season later, the Jackrabbits, Summit double champion, secured a 12, the league’s third in the past 10 seasons and the Jackrabbits’ second in three seasons. Just twice in the past decade—2017’s 16 seed and a 15 in 2015—has the Summit champ not earned a seed somewhere between the 12 and 14 lines.

Nationally, the Summit still seems to have reputation as a conference that’s not totally stable. But with North Dakota moving over from the Big Sky—a move that reunited the Fighting Hawks with its three closest rivals—the conference has a defined, stable core that runs from the Dakotas down to Oklahoma. Remember that Oral Roberts actually moved back to the Summit for the 2014-15 season after and ill-fated two years in the Southland. And while the Summit’s biggest geographic outlier—the newly-christened Purdue Fort Wayne—is always going to hear its name come up in expansion discussions, particularly concerning the Horizon League, the remaining eight teams are all in position to stick around and continue to earn respectable seeds.

While KenPom projects that just three Summit members will outperform their four-year rankings, one of those teams is conveniently South Dakota State. Disappointingly, North Dakota State is the squad expected to underperform its recent history by the largest margin.

Ranking The Schedules

A season ago, the Summit consistently ranked in the top 10 of all four scheduling categories, with three teams building top 75 schedules and no team ranking in the bottom 75 in most groupings. But in 2018-19, the league only finds itself in the top 10 in the Known category, with the variable schedules pushing the Summit’s super average to 12th out of the 32 conferences. While five teams are in the top 150, with Oral Roberts in the top 25, four teams’ presence outside of the top 200, with Western Illinois dropping outside of the top 300, hurts the league’s average considerably.

Note: The number of asterisks (*) represent the number of pending games on a team’s schedule.

Who Over- And Under-Scheduled?

While a slight majority of Summit teams over-scheduled this season, South Dakota State’s under-scheduling by 186 spots might give the Jackrabbits some trouble in the seeding department, should they reach the NCAAs for a third consecutive time. Note that the league did a far better job of scheduling relative to recent performances in 2017-18, when the Summit’s average scheduling gap ranked fourth among the conferences, compared to 20th this season.

With North Dakota joining for this season, the Summit schedule increased from 14 games to 16, largely negating the increase in non-conference games expected with the Fighting Hawks arrival. In three of the four categories above, the Summit’s raw totals declined from a season ago—disappointingly so in the True Home Games category. The lone home game against a Power 7 opponent is Oral Roberts’ annual crosstown matchup with Tulsa.

This season, the Summit is participating in a pair of challenge series, both of which impacted the table above. While non-D1 opponents top the standings for the second season in a row, the WAC soared up to second, as Summit members have scheduled 11 more games against the conference—including a full challenge series—than a season ago. Meanwhile, the Big Sky, second a season ago, drops to third. Note that the Big Sky/Summit Challenge only includes a quartet of schools from each conference, with each participant playing a home and road matchup. Five conferences are completely missing from the set portion of Summit schedules this season, a drop of one from 2017-18. The ACC is the lone Power 7 conference falling in that group, a change from a season ago.

Not surprisingly, teams from the Big Sky (Montana State) and WAC (UMKC) appear three times on Summit schedules, as does Eastern Illinois from the OVC, thanks to their annual home-and-home series with Western Illinois. The Leathernecks have five OVC games on their slate alone, while North Dakota has four non-D1 games lined up.

Not only is Oral Roberts’ visit from Tulsa the Summit’s only Power 7 home game, it’s also the league’s lone top 100 home game, at least according to the four-year ranking. A whopping 44 of 51 scheduled home non-conference games feature Summit members playing teams falling under Quad 4 in the four-year table or non-D1 opposition. On the other hand, 28 Summit non-league road games will come against teams in the top 100.

Both North Dakota State and South Dakota State will play in eight-team bracketed tournaments with a mid-major focus, limiting the pair’s (and league’s) chances at picking up marquee wins on neutral floors.

Team-By-Team Breakdown

Teams are listed in order of their Super Average Schedule Ranking. The number in front of an opponent name is its Four-Year Ranking. Logos via SportsLogos.net.

22. Oral Roberts Golden Eagles

Record against returning opponents from 2017-18: 2 wins (Missouri State, @FGCU) and 2 losses (@Tulsa, Oakland)

Paul Mills’ first season in charge in Tulsa ended with just 11 wins, but there were some bright spots along the way—particularly a mid-December stretch that saw the Golden Eagles defeat a pair of teams that return to this rather difficult schedule, Missouri State and FGCU. Although Tulsa heads to the Mabee Center this year, ORU will have to travel to its four other Power 7 games, along with WCC at-large threat BYU and Oakland, who will host the Golden Eagles and two other mid-majors for a Thanksgiving round-robin.

70. North Dakota State Bison

Record against returning opponents from 2017-18: 1 win (@Missouri State) and 2 losses (@UC Santa Barbara, Missouri State)

In 2017-18, the Bison recorded their first losing record in Dave Richman’s four seasons, with their 15-17 mark a disappointment after an 8-6 start. North Dakota State might struggle a bit more in the early stages of this season. For starters, there’s hefty road schedule, including games at Gonzaga, Iowa State, and New Mexico State (to open the season and the WAC Challenge). Then, the Bison drew two of the most difficult opponents in the Big Sky event—Montana on the road and Eastern Washington at home. Plus, NDSU could play the Grizzlies a few weeks before their scheduled meeting, as both are on the same half of the bracket in the Bahamas. And then there’s a winnable game against Drake, which will be played in Minneapolis at US Bank Stadium—venue for this season’s Final Four. That final matchup is a feather in the cap for one of the most consistent programs in the mid-major ranks.

117. Omaha Mavericks

Record against returning opponents from 2017-18: 1 win (Montana State) and 2 losses (Montana State (N), @UC Santa Barbara)

After consecutive 18-14 seasons, Derrin Hansen’s Mavericks slipped to 9-22 in 2017-18, claiming just five non-Summit wins in 16 tries. This time around, Omaha will play three fewer non-league games, with nine of their 13 contests away from home. That total includes a half-dozen Power 7 road games, capped by a trip to Pac-12 favorite Oregon.

130. North Dakota Fighting Hawks

Record against returning opponents from 2017-18: 3 wins (Northland, Montana State, Montana State (N)) and 4 losses (Utah Valley, Idaho, @Idaho, @Montana State)

The Fighting Hawks followed up their 22-win Big Sky title campaign with a 10-win decline in their final season in that conference. Brian Jones’ squad will begin its rebuild and Summit tenure by encountering some familiar faces—North Dakota will participate in the challenge series with its former league, hosting Idaho and visiting Montana State. There are also trips to Marquette and Kentucky, with the excursion to Lexington part of the Wildcats’ weird exempt tournament. Why is it weird? Well, the Hawks won’t meet any of the other mid-majors who will likely lose to UK at Rupp Arena. Instead, they’ll play a pair of local non-D1 squads to complete their participation.

138. South Dakota Coyotes

Record against returning opponents from 2017-18: (USD) 3 wins (Southern Miss. (N), @UMKC, @Northern Arizona) and 0 losses

Utah State hired away Craig Smith after he guided the Coyotes to steady improvement over four seasons, capped by 48 total wins in his final two years in charge. Former Kentucky Wesleyan head coach and Grand Canyon assistant Todd Lee returns to his alma mater with the aim of continuing building upon the strong foundation Smith laid down. And this 13-game slate should get South Dakota ready to challenge their archrivals from Brookings for the the conference crown, thanks to a pair of Big 12 road games (Baylor and Kansas), a contest at Colorado, and three games in the Bahamas for the Bimini Jam, including one against UMBC, the first 16 to defeat a 1 in NCAA Men’s Tournament history.

226. Denver Pioneers

Record against returning opponents from 2017-18: 2 wins (UC Irvine, Air Force) and 2 losses (@Northern Colorado, @Montana State)

Rodney Billups’ first two Pioneer teams have almost been the very definition of average, as DU followed up 2016-17’s 16-14 finish with a 15-15 one. Denver started 6-8 a season ago and with nine non-conference games away from Magness Arena this season—including trips to Kansas State and Gonzaga and three games at Seattle‘s round-robin event—the Pioneers will be hard pressed to improve upon that record.

232. Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons

Record against returning opponents from 2017-18: 0 wins and 2 losses (@Akron, @Miami (Ohio)

Thanks to some administrative changes, the former Indiana and Purdue joint campus in Fort Wayne is now under the latter’s sole management, which means the Mastodons’ color scheme now features the old gold and black of the sibling Boilermakers. While Purdue doesn’t feature on this season’s schedule, another school connected to coaching legend John Wooden—UCLA—does. That early trip to Westwood is one of two Power 7 games on Purdue Fort Wayne’s 2018 slate, the other is a trip to Ohio State that’s part of the Buckeyes’ exempt event. With those games and a contest at Dayton likely to be the only three the Mastodons will play against top 100 foes, Jon Coffman’s squad should get off to a strong start, which would position them to improve upon 2017-18’s 18-15 finish.

281. South Dakota State Jackrabbits

Record against returning opponents from 2017-18: 3 wins (UC Irvine, Alabama State, @UMKC) and 0 losses

T.J. Otzelberger’s Jackrabbits have a third consecutive NCAA bid in their sights. But the Jackrabbits will need to do some serious damage against this opposition to match last season’s 12 seed, even if they sweep this season’s Summit titles. While South Dakota State drew the two toughest opponents in the Big Sky Challenge (Eastern Washington and Montana), and Grand Canyon isn’t an easy matchup in the WAC series, the presence of three home games against sub-300 squads weighs this slate down. But there’s hope for some over-performance, as the Jackrabbits visit Mountain West favorite Nevada and will get to challenge UNI in US Bank Stadium’s Final Four dress rehearsal. Plus, there are the four games in Southwest Florida that comprise SDSU’s participation in the Gulf Coast Showcase, an event the Jackrabbits will be favored to win.

303. Western Illinois Leathernecks

Record against returning opponents from 2017-18: (WIU) 3 wins (Eastern Illinois, @SIU Edwardsville, IUPUI) and 1 loss (@Eastern Illinois)

The Leathernecks won 12 of their 28 games last season, the high-water mark for Billy Wright’s four seasons in charge, with nine of those victories coming in non-conference play. However, with eight road games and two fewer non-D1 contests on this slate, don’t expect WIU to have such a successful November and December, even against the weakest non-league slate in the Summit. And that caution is provided even while noting that Western Illinois only plays a pair of Power 7 road games, against Creighton and Nebraska.

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