For all of the posts in this series, visit the 2019-20 Non-Conference Scheduling Hub.

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Ranking The Teams

Once again, the Big 12 stands alone at the top of Division I’s 32 conferences in the four-year rankings. Making this accomplishment all the more impressive for 2019-20? The league has just one top 10 team this season, Kansas, compared to two a season ago. However, Texas Tech is knocking on the door. The Red Raiders rank 11th, thanks to a 19-place jump. The Big 12’s average ranking of 28.1 is a modest improvement upon the 28.5 of a season ago, and while the conference can no longer boast of having all 10 members ranking in the national top 50, the number of top 25 teams has increased from three to five over the past year. And if West Virginia hadn’t struggled so much in 2018-19 that total would have double. Instead, the Mountaineers fell out of both the top 10 and top 25.

Ranking The Schedules

Last season, Kansas and Oklahoma had top five schedules nationally, but the conference’s average schedule strength ranked second to the SEC. This time around, no Big 12 team ranks higher than Oklahoma State at 17th, but the conference has jumped its challenge partner—though the gap is a mere four-tenths. What gives? Well, the bottom half of the rankings have improved, for starters, as Texas Tech, the only Big 12 team with a sub-150 non-conference schedule a season ago (a woeful 315th), is now in the top 200. Plus, the Red Raiders are now the only team outside of the top 125 nationally. More notably, while just three Big 12 teams had top 50 non-conference slates heading into 2018-19, five do this time around, with seven teams in the top 75 compared to just four last year.

This season, the Big 12 will collectively play one more true road game and one fewer non-power road game than in 2018-19. While Baylor, TCU, and Texas Tech will each play just one non-league away contest this season—with each being part of one of the Big 12’s two challenge series—the other seven teams will each play at least two. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State will play three apiece, with both taking the floor for a single non-power road game.

TCU is the lone conference team playing a non-D1 game subject to the penalty I implemented in this season’s rankings. Remember that Kansas’ Maui Invitational quarterfinal against Chaminade is exempt from the rule.

No games scheduled or possible against: America East, ASUN

For the second season in a row, the Big 12’s first challenge partner, the SEC tops the table. However, there are four fewer Big 12/SEC encounters scheduled than there were a season ago. It’s the Big 12’s newest partner, the Big East, that’s made the biggest jump, from a tie for ninth to second place, thanks to double the number of set matchups when compared to 2018-19. That helped knock the Southland out of second spot, all the way down into a tie for sixth with the ACC. Overall, the other six power conferences all rank in top eight in terms of Big 12 non-league games. All but the ACC did a season ago.

There’s a fair amount of variety on Big 12 schedules, as no team appears more than twice across all 10. Plus, no league member will play more than two games against any other Division I conference.

The Big 12’s collection of Quad 1 win possibilities fell from 28 a season ago to 22 in 2018-19. With the conference’s total of Quad 4 games remaining exactly the same, that means Quad 2 and 3 opponents feature a little more heavily this time around. Quad 2 is the biggest beneficiary as there are seven more games against such opposition than a season ago.

The Big 12 By Team

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

Teams that failed to max out their schedules (2/10): Baylor (no fourth MTE game), TCU

17. Oklahoma State Cowboys

After threatening to sneak into the NCAAs in Mike Boynton’s first season, the Cowboys took a step back in his second, recording just 12 wins, a nine-victory drop from 2017-18’s NIT campaign. Oklahoma State finished below .500 a season ago in non-Big 12 play with a slightly more forgiving schedule, but Boynton clearly wants to test his team early once again despite those results. There will be very little time for the Pokes to breathe this fall, as a stretch that starts with a road game against College of Charleston and ends with a game in Tulsa against Minnesota is one of the toughest stretches a power conference team will face in November and December 2019. Five NCAA teams from a season ago and a pair of NIT qualifiers could factor in that nine-game stretch depending on how things shake out in Brooklyn over Thanksgiving week.

18. Kansas Jayhawks

Unusually for these rankings, the Jayhawks don’t lead the way in this year’s discussion of Big 12 non-conference scheduling. But there’s not much separating Kansas from Oklahoma State, particularly with the Jayhawks opening against Duke in a top-four matchup in the Champions Classic, Michigan State likely awaiting Bill Self’s club in the Maui final (I don’t think any of the three teams on KU’s side of the bracket will provide much resistance.), and a pair of marquee conference challenge matchups at Villanova and against Tennessee in Lawrence. Even though KU has to play Chaminade in the Maui quarters and a pair of sub-250 teams, matchups with SoCon contenders ETSU and UNCG, a Big 8/12 reunion with a quality Colorado club, and road trip to take on favorite son Jarrod Haase’s Stanford squad (who took Kansas to OT last season at the Phog) more than make up for those games.

21. Oklahoma Sooners

Once again, Lon Kruger’s club will play many non-conference games away from Lloyd Noble Center, including its January 25th SEC Challenge matchup against Mississippi State, tapped as one of two games scheduled for Oklahoma City this winter. That game against the Bulldogs and a December 21st visit from UCF are the only two high-quality home games Oklahoma has lined up for the season. As a result, its the half-dozen quality road/neutral matchups that give this slate its rankings boost. Note that Oklahoma went 12-1 in non-conference games a season ago, racking up seven road and neutral wins, and those victories helped push the Sooners into the NCAAs after they struggled to a 7-12 mark in conference games.

47. Iowa State Cyclones

Like Oklahoma, the Cyclones looked to be skidding into the NCAAs, thanks to three consecutive losses to close the regular season. But three straight wins in Kansas City earned the Big 12’s auto bid, so Steve Prohm’s club didn’t need to sweat out a sub-par non-conference schedule. Despite the presence of two sub-340 home games, November and December’s slate shouldn’t be much of a concern for Iowa State this March. That’s thanks to the Cyclones’ participation in a loaded Battle 4 Atlantis, a home game against Seton Hall in the Big East Battle (with the Pirates also a day three possibility in the Bahamas), the annual game with Iowa, and an SEC Challenge trip to Auburn, a Final Four team a season ago.

49. Texas Longhorns

The Longhorns’ 2018-19 non-conference schedule, which featured wins over both North Carolina and Purdue, wasn’t enough to get the eventual NIT champions into the Big Dance, not after a poor 2-6 stretch doomed the Horns to the three-letter tournament. So, Shaka Smart will be feeling some pressure from November all the way through Selection Sunday 2020. And while there are six winnable home games on this schedule, none of them will do much to move the meter when it comes to postseason evaluation. Instead, it will be the SEC challenge visit from LSU, pair of games at the Garden for the 2K Empire Classic, the first meeting with Texas A&M in four years, and road contests against the Boilermakers and Providence that will indicate whether Texas is a contender or pretender.

74. West Virginia Mountaineers

The Mountaineers’ run of four consecutive seasons with 25-plus wins ended with a thud, as Bob Huggins’ squad went 15-21 in 2018-19. This schedule should get West Virginia off to a decent start as it attempts to return to its winning ways. While the Mountaineers will be challenged in their exempt event in Cancun, St. John’s isn’t a bad draw for the Big East Battle, even if the game is at MSG, while WVU could have done worse in drawing Missouri for the SEC event in January. The other road games, at Backyard Brawl rival Pittsburgh and Horizon strugglers Youngstown State, aren’t terrifying, while Rhode Island are the strongest visitor to Morgantown by some distance, at least until Big 12 play begins.

75. TCU Horned Frogs

The Horned Frogs are another Big 12 team that stumbled down the stretch, as their 12-1 non-conference mark, highlighted by a SEC Challenge win over Florida, couldn’t make up for an 8-12 run through conference play. Jamie Dixon’s squad will try again with a home-heavy schedule that doesn’t feature a true road game until calendar turns over to 2020. However, TCU will be challenged by several quality mid-majors (Big West champ UC Irvine, Sun Belt power Louisiana, Illinois State, Winthrop), along with a tantalizing pair of games in the Main Event in Vegas, a semi-home game against USC at the new Dickies Arena, and a potentially huge visit from Xavier in the Big East Battle.

115. Kansas State Wildcats

While the Wildcats won a share of the Big 12 crown and earned a four seed in the NCAAs, a First Round loss to UC Irvine left Bruce Weber’s squad hungry for more heading into 2019-20. This schedule should give K-State plenty of opportunities to celebrate this fall, thanks to a trio of sub-300 home games and a very winnable exempt tournament in the Fort Myers Tip-Off. The most difficult games follow the Cats’ trip to Southwest Florida, as Marquette visit for the Big East series, with a game in Newark against Mississippi State following four days later. Then, Atlantic 10 Tournament champ Saint Louis will serve as the opposition for Kansas State’s annual Kansas City game, while the pre-Big 12 slate closes with a visit from a Tulsa team that defeated the Wildcats 47-46 last December. K-State’s third most interesting non-conference game may be January 25th’s SEC Challenge date at Alabama, depending on how Nate Oats fares in his first few weeks in charge in Tuscaloosa.

117. Baylor Bears

Even with the presence of four sub-250 games, the Bears’ non-conference schedule for 2019-20 is a significant step up from that of 2018-19. And remains true despite the lack of true road games, as Baylor won’t play such a contest until Big 12 play begins—unless they happen to meet Coastal Carolina on day two of the Myrtle Beach Invitational on the Chanticleers’ home floor. But Scott Drew’s club would prefer to meet Utah and either Villanova or Mississippi State there, and those games would add more quality to a schedule that already includes visits from Arizona and Butler, along with an SEC Challenge game at Florida and an early season meeting with Washington in Alaska. If Baylor can perform well against this schedule, they’ll be in line to better last season’s nine seed.

188. Texas Tech Red Raiders

While 2019’s NCAA runner-up still has the Big 12’s worst non-conference schedule, this effort is light years’ better than 2018-19’s version. However, the home slate, which gives fans in Lubbock little to look forward to other than the Big 12 Challenge meeting with Kentucky, drags its ranking down. While the Red Raiders will play quality neutral-site games as part of the Las Vegas Invitational and Jimmy V Classic, the Big East Battle assignment of a road game against DePaul is a bit disappointing. Expect Texas Tech to enter Big 12 play with plenty of wins once again.

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