Weak non-conference road schedule

[dukediv2013]

A couple of months ago (I think after the Wisconsin game) I said that Duke's weak non-conference road schedule would come back to bite them in ACC play and the NCAA Tournament. No one on this board agreed with me at that time, but who agrees today?

I don't want to attribute all of Duke's bad play in the losses to playing on the road, but I think it does factor into the game. If we had played a few of those neutral-site games as true road games, I believe that this team would be a much better road team. But since we have not, we will be seeking our first true road win of the season for the 4th time on Saturday.

GO DUKE! BEAT CLEMSON!

[duke4life32182]

I think its going to be an awesome game Saturday, but I think we can pull it out.

[KyDevilinIL]

It's worth noting that probably two of the three best teams we've played this season are Wisconsin and Georgia Tech, and those were both true road games. Was playing on the road the primary culprit in those losses, or the fact that the competition was so strong? It's a combination of both, of course, but I'm not convinced the location of the games was the overwhelming reason for either loss.

State was what it was. An improving, hungry team playing in a crazed arena against a Duke team that played as poorly as it has all year. A perfect storm. Good teams can lose games like that; really good teams respond well to such losses. We'll find out where we stand in that regard on Saturday.

[camion]

I don't want to attribute all of Duke's bad play in the losses to playing on the road, but I think it does factor into the game. If we had played a few of those neutral-site games as true road games, I believe that this team would be a much better road team.
GO DUKE! BEAT CLEMSON!

I disagree. But if you are correct, we have now played three true tough road games so we should be ready for Clemson now if playing on the road makes us a much better road team.

[Kedsy]

I disagree. But if you are correct, we have now played three true tough road games so we should be ready for Clemson now if playing on the road makes us a much better road team.

This brings up a good point. How many true road games would the original poster have liked us to schedule? State was our third one, so I guess two would not have been enough. Maybe we should schedule all road games, but then if we lost a tournament game we'd probably have to blame it on the lack of neutral site games in the pre-season.

[sagegrouse]

State was what it was. An improving, hungry team playing in a crazed arena against a Duke team that played as poorly as it has all year. A perfect storm. Good teams can lose games like that; really good teams respond well to such losses. We'll find out where we stand in that regard on Saturday.

The other comment about last night's game that seems appropriate is a piece of movie dialogue:

"Who are those guys?" said Butch Cassidy to the Sundance Kid.

I mean, really: Horner, Javi, Tracy? I have seen State play a few times, and I never saw anything like last night. And they shot 58%, which is a good percentage in a shoot-around .

sagegrouse

[SeattleIrish]

Why doesn't anyone ever come on and post, "Remember 3 weeks ago when I posted that (blah...blah...blah...) and no one believed me then? You all mocked me and said I didn't know what I was talking about. Well, 3 weeks later, I wanted to come back here and post that you were all right and I was wrong. I've learned a lot from all of you."?

Dukediv - if we come back and win 3 road games in a row, I'm hoping you restore my faith in humanity and make the first such post:eek:

s.i.

[flyingdutchdevil]

This brings up a good point. How many true road games would the original poster have liked us to schedule? State was our third one, so I guess two would not have been enough. Maybe we should schedule all road games, but then if we lost a tournament game we'd probably have to blame it on the lack of neutral site games in the pre-season.

I don't really understand your point. Are you suggesting that we played enough true road games in our non-conference schedule? The original poster's main argument is that Duke didn't have enough true road games to truly prepare themselves for the rough ACC. Considering that we played only one true road game before ACC play, lost that one, and then played two road games in the ACC and lost those too, he may have a pretty convincing point.

So many, and I mean so many, attribute experience as a sign of potential success. Experience comes in many verticals: age, minutes, NCAA success, and home/road games. This team has a lot of the other types of experience, but true road games this year it does not. I personally think last night was a fluke. If we played NC State 10 times, we would have won 9. That said, I agree with the original poster that we weren't prepared for away games coming into the ACC.

[Kedsy]

I don't really understand your point. Are you suggesting that we played enough true road games in our non-conference schedule? The original poster's main argument is that Duke didn't have enough true road games to truly prepare themselves for the rough ACC. Considering that we played only one true road game before ACC play, lost that one, and then played two road games in the ACC and lost those too, he may have a pretty convincing point.

So many, and I mean so many, attribute experience as a sign of potential success. Experience comes in many verticals: age, minutes, NCAA success, and home/road games. This team has a lot of the other types of experience, but true road games this year it does not. I personally think last night was a fluke. If we played NC State 10 times, we would have won 9. That said, I agree with the original poster that we weren't prepared for away games coming into the ACC.

My point is I don't think he has anything close to a convincing point. I apologize for being snippy but I tend to get annoyed by "I told you so" posts, especially since his point is sooooo far from being proven in a two game sample size with no control group.

Only three of our players are freshmen (and one of them hardly played last night). The rest have played in plenty of road games (although I'll grant that Miles didn't actually get on the court in so many road games last year). The idea that playing one or two extra road games would have made Mason and Andre (or Miles, for that matter) play better last night makes no sense to me.

Moreover, if I recall correctly, the original debate was comparing our schedule to UNC's, saying why couldn't we play as many road games as they do. Well, UNC's only road games (pre-ACC) were at Kentucky, in Texas (but not @Texas, it wasn't really a "true" road game, although perhaps a little more than our game in Chicago), and at Charleston (although that came way after the original discussion). Well, accepting that in the original discussion UNC's schedule was considered laudatory (which is my recollection but admittedly may not be accurate), then the OP would effectively be arguing that one extra road game against a second-tier Southern Conference team plus moving the Chicago game to somewhere closer to Iowa (but not @Iowa State) would have been acceptable and would have avoided last night's debacle. Again, that seems like quite a stretch to me, not to mention that all those road games didn't keep Carolina from getting clobbered in their only league road game so far. (Plus, UNC's lost 2 of their 3 home games in the league so far; maybe they didn't schedule enough home games in the pre-season.)

Finally, even if the original debate wasn't in the context of UNC's schedule, I doubt too many of the top-tier teams play more than two (and certainly not more than three) "true" road games in the pre-season schedule. So, (a) again, we are arguing about one (or at most two) additional road games; (b) most coaches of top-tier teams seem to more or less agree with K's scheduling strategy; (c) plenty of other teams who play only one true pre-conference road game (or even none) seem to do OK on the road in their conference schedule; and (d) Duke has been one of the best (if not the best) road team in the ACC for years, despite K's scheduling tendencies.

And if we're really only talking about one extra pre-season road game, then didn't we get that against GaTech? It shouldn't have affected us against State at all, right?

So I don't agree. Is that better?

[flyingdutchdevil]

My point is I don't think he has anything close to a convincing point. I apologize for being snippy but I tend to get annoyed by "I told you so" posts, especially since his point is sooooo far from being proven in a two game sample size with no control group.

Only three of our players are freshmen (and one of them hardly played last night). The rest have played in plenty of road games (although I'll grant that Miles didn't actually get on the court in so many road games last year). The idea that playing one or two extra road games would have made Mason and Andre (or Miles, for that matter) play better last night makes no sense to me.

Moreover, if I recall correctly, the original debate was comparing our schedule to UNC's, saying why couldn't we play as many road games as they do. Well, UNC's only road games (pre-ACC) were at Kentucky, in Texas (but not @Texas, it wasn't really a "true" road game, although perhaps a little more than our game in Chicago), and at Charleston (although that came way after the original discussion). Well, accepting that in the original discussion UNC's schedule was considered laudatory (which is my recollection but admittedly may not be accurate), then the OP would effectively be arguing that one extra road game against a second-tier Southern Conference team plus moving the Chicago game to somewhere closer to Iowa (but not @Iowa State) would have been acceptable and would have avoided last night's debacle. Again, that seems like quite a stretch to me, not to mention that all those road games didn't keep Carolina from getting clobbered in their only league road game so far. (Plus, UNC's lost 2 of their 3 home games in the league so far; maybe they didn't schedule enough home games in the pre-season.)

Finally, even if the original debate wasn't in the context of UNC's schedule, I doubt too many of the top-tier teams play more than two (and certainly not more than three) "true" road games in the pre-season schedule. So, (a) again, we are arguing about one (or at most two) additional road games; (b) most coaches of top-tier teams seem to more or less agree with K's scheduling strategy; (c) plenty of other teams who play only one true pre-conference road game (or even none) seem to do OK on the road in their conference schedule; and (d) Duke has been one of the best (if not the best) road team in the ACC for years, despite K's scheduling tendencies.

And if we're really only talking about one extra pre-season road game, then didn't we get that against GaTech? It shouldn't have affected us against State at all, right?

So I don't agree. Is that better?

Much better ;). You give a convincing argument, but I think all of these posts are underlying an overall theme: Duke is not very good (and one could easily make the argument of being horrible) on the road. We lost to two undefeated teams at the time (Sconsin wasn't ranked when we played them) and an inconsistent GT team. All on the road. This is bad. I kinda laughed and never thought that a poor shooting Singler was an issue when DBR was going bonkers. However, not being able to play away is indeed a concern. Anyone who thinks it's not, I'd love to hear your views.

[pfrduke]

A couple of months ago (I think after the Wisconsin game) I said that Duke's weak non-conference road schedule would come back to bite them in ACC play and the NCAA Tournament. No one on this board agreed with me at that time, but who agrees today?

I don't want to attribute all of Duke's bad play in the losses to playing on the road, but I think it does factor into the game. If we had played a few of those neutral-site games as true road games, I believe that this team would be a much better road team. But since we have not, we will be seeking our first true road win of the season for the 4th time on Saturday.

GO DUKE! BEAT CLEMSON!

I think my single favorite (from a chuckling, entertainment standpoint) feature of this board is the "I told you so" posts, particularly when they're of the "I'm so smart about all the reasons Duke may fail" variety. Kudos.

[airowe]

Much better ;). You give a convincing argument, but I think all of these posts are underlying an overall theme: Duke is not very good (and one could easily make the argument of being horrible) on the road. We lost to two undefeated teams at the time (Sconsin wasn't ranked when we played them) and an inconsistent GT team. All on the road. This is bad. I kinda laughed and never thought that a poor shooting Singler was an issue when DBR was going bonkers. However, not being able to play away is indeed a concern. Anyone who thinks it's not, I'd love to hear your views.

We only have one bad loss in an away game. If we start losing to more relatively bad teams on the road, I'll say we have a problem on the road. It's too small a sample size to judge future performances on right now.

A certain team lost to Boston College at home to start ACC play and followed that up with a loss at Wake Forest last year.

Want to know how they finished the season? (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/teams/schedule?teamId=153&year=2009)

[pfrduke]

Much better ;). You give a convincing argument, but I think all of these posts are underlying an overall theme: Duke is not very good (and one could easily make the argument of being horrible) on the road. We lost to two undefeated teams at the time (Sconsin wasn't ranked when we played them) and an inconsistent GT team. All on the road. This is bad. I kinda laughed and never thought that a poor shooting Singler was an issue when DBR was going bonkers. However, not being able to play away is indeed a concern. Anyone who thinks it's not, I'd love to hear your views.

I'm not sure that 3 games is enough to say that Duke "is not very good or arguably horrible" on the road as a truism, for two reasons.

First, the losses to Wisconsin and Georgia Tech were losses to top-20 caliber teams by less than a handful of points. The GT game, especially, was extremely winnable. We played pretty well in both games - not our best, certainly, but we didn't play like a "not very good" or "arguably horrible" team in either.

Second, 3 games is only 3 games. The team has 7 more road contests this year, including two big ones the next two weekends. The time for defining our talent as a road team will come later.

Clearly, the team has not played as well away from home as in Cameron. But that doesn't mean that now, or for the season, Duke becomes a "not very good or arguably horrible" team on the road.

[flyingdutchdevil]

We only have one bad loss in an away game. If we start losing to more relatively bad teams on the road, I'll say we have a problem on the road. It's too small a sample size to judge future performances on right now.

A certain team lost to Boston College at home to start ACC play and followed that up with a loss at Wake Forest last year.

Want to know how they finished the season? (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/teams/schedule?teamId=153&year=2009)

I'd have to disagree with you on this point. That team you speak of already proved their away games with wins at UC Santa Barbara (k, not a great example), Mich State, and Nevada.

Second, we're already a third into the ACC and the season is basically half done. That isn't a small sample size, even if we only have 3 "true" away games. IMO, it is a concern. Littlejohn is a great (in many senses of the word) test for Duke.

[flyingdutchdevil]

Clearly, the team has not played as well away from home as in Cameron. But that doesn't mean that now, or for the season, Duke becomes a "not very good or arguably horrible" team on the road.

How would you interpret 0-3 on the road? A loss is a loss, and not being able to maintain a lead (ie GT) or play good defense (ie NCSU) is not exactly elite basketball on the road. Yes - the sample size is small. But, on a neutral court, would you rather take Duke or any of the other teams that we played? I'd take Duke 10 times out of 10 and be confident. On the road, it's a completely different matter.

For the record, I think Duke is a top 10 team and probably a top 5 team. But there are two types of Duke right now - on the road Duke and home / neutral Duke.

[airowe]

I'd have to disagree with you on this point. That team you speak of already proved their away games with wins at UC Santa Barbara (k, not a great example), Mich State, and Nevada.

Second, we're already a third into the ACC and the season is basically half done. That isn't a small sample size, even if we only have 3 "true" away games. IMO, it is a concern. Littlejohn is a great (in many senses of the word) test for Duke.

Don't talk to me about Nevada and UCSB. That team was a lot better than this team also. All I'm saying is, you can't predict future successes on such a small sample size.

[flyingdutchdevil]

Don't talk to me about Nevada and UCSB. That team was a lot better than this team also. All I'm saying is, you can't predict future successes on such a small sample size.

And all I'm saying is that Duke's play on the road is a concern. Currently, with the exception of K's track record, there is nothing to suggest that we're a good team on the road. Do I think we'll be 8-8? Of course not. Do I think K will get it together? Absolutely! But, as of this moment, our road situation is indeed a situation. And the most pressing issue that Duke faces right now.

[pfrduke]

How would you interpret 0-3 on the road? A loss is a loss, and not being able to maintain a lead (ie GT) or play good defense (ie NCSU) is not exactly elite basketball on the road. Yes - the sample size is small. But, on a neutral court, would you rather take Duke or any of the other teams that we played? I'd take Duke 10 times out of 10 and be confident. On the road, it's a completely different matter.

For the record, I think Duke is a top 10 team and probably a top 5 team. But there are two types of Duke right now - on the road Duke and home / neutral Duke.

We play 10 "true" road games this season. If I had to rank them, today, in terms of degree of difficulty, it would be somewhat like this:

1) Clemson
2) Wisconsin
t3) Georgia Tech and Georgetown
5) UNC
6) Maryland
7) NCSU
8) UVA
9) Miami
10) BC

Yes, so far, we're 0-3, and yes, we've lost one of the games that should have been one of the easier (relatively speaking) road games we'll play this year. But if we end up 5-5 or 6-4 on the road against that schedule, I'd say we're a pretty good road team - K's teams don't usually do much better than that. If we end up 7-3, which we still can, that's really good. That doesn't mean we're an exceptional road team, but we don't need to be, since (as so many others have pointed out) we don't play road games after March 3.

Also, the team that played at Georgia Tech and at Wisconsin is a good road team. I'd wager that those two schools don't have more than 1 or 2 closer home games all season, and those are two teams that are very good on their home court. The team that played last night was bad - there aren't really any two ways about that one. IMO, calling the team "not very good" or "arguably horrible" on the road extrapolates way too much from the most recent game and ignores both earlier performance from this year as well as several seasons' worth of performance for our other players.

[dukediv2013]

Again, I don't want to attribute all of Duke's losses to a weak non-conference road schedule, but Duke has lost 6 of the last 8 in the ACC on the road.

I would like to see us play 2 non-conference road games before conference play next year. Scheduling Louisville is a great step in the right direction.

I also don't like "I told you so" posts, but this theme is becoming more prevalent as the year goes on, so maybe it is time to think about some things like this. I was at the game last night and we just looked awful defensively. Does the road crowd have anything to do with it? I don't know, but it just had me thinking.

Sorry if I made anyone upset with my initial post.

[airowe]

And all I'm saying is that Duke's play on the road is a concern. Currently, with the exception of K's track record, there is nothing to suggest that we're a good team on the road. Do I think we'll be 8-8? Of course not. Do I think K will get it together? Absolutely! But, as of this moment, our road situation is indeed a situation. And the most pressing issue that Duke faces right now.

The most pressing issue Duke faces right now is Clemson's Defense ;)

I understand where you're coming from. Duke has played three poor games on the road. Two of them were against really good competition though and one of those is almost impossible to beat at home. If we start losing at BC, at Miami, at UVA I'll be concerned. I hope we win this game at Clemson, and I think we will but if we lose at Georgetown I'm not freaking out. That's a really good team and they're going to be out for blood.

[Kedsy]

Again, I don't want to attribute all of Duke's losses to a weak non-conference road schedule, but Duke has lost 6 of the last 8 in the ACC on the road.

I would like to see us play 2 non-conference road games before conference play next year. Scheduling Louisville is a great step in the right direction.

I also don't like "I told you so" posts, but this theme is becoming more prevalent as the year goes on, so maybe it is time to think about some things like this. I was at the game last night and we just looked awful defensively. Does the road crowd have anything to do with it? I don't know, but it just had me thinking.

Sorry if I made anyone upset with my initial post.

And I apologize if I overreacted to your initial post.

Again, however, you seem to be playing sample size games with your "we've lost 6 of 8 road games." We won the two before that, making us 4 and 4 in conference road games last year, and .500 on the road in the ACC is actually pretty darn good.

Of our four late road losses last season, three of them were to top 10 teams, and only one (Clemson) was a train wreck. We were not a bad road team last year.

Are we a bad road team this year? I don't know. I agree with other posters who have said neither the Wisconsin loss nor the Georgia Tech loss were bad losses. But even if we are a bad road team, I don't believe it's because K scheduled only one pre-conference road game instead of two. That's only my opinion, of course.

[Kfanarmy]

the most pressing issue duke faces right now is clemson's defense ;)
punny

[Chitowndevil]

Fun (and admittedly OT) facts:

Only eight coaches in the history of the ACC have career winning records in road conference games.

Of those eight, seven coached at UNC or Duke. Two coached at schools other than UNC or Duke (not a misprint!).

Coach K is fourth on the list at 129-85 (.603). Roy Williams is first at 33-16 (.673), though I'm betting he'll be behind Vic Bubas (46-23, .667) after this year.

Dean Smith, the career leader in ACC victories, won at a nearly 25% higher clip at home (.838) than on the road (.591) in conference games. (K's winning %s are .783 and .603, respectively).

[NYDukie]

Came across some road win breakdowns of the top 10 on SI as follows

Texas (3): Rice, Arkansas, Iowa State
Kentucky (3): Indiana, Florida, Auburn
Kansas (3): UCLA, Temple, Nebraska
Villanova (3): Marquette, Louisville, Rutgers
Syracuse (4): Seton Hall, Rutgers, West Virginia, Notre Dame
Michigan State (3): The Citadel, Northwestern, Iowa
Duke (0)
Tennessee (2): Memphis, Alabama
Pittsburgh (3): Syracuse, Cincinnati, UConn
Kansas State (1): Colorado

I know some like to nitpick about other teams road wins but when in fact we have not one road win to date, we have no basis to complain about being bumped out of the Top 10, moved down to a 3 or 4 seed on someone's bracket projection or left out of the national championship debate. Now, remember this is as of today and there is a lot of schedule left. This can all change, just as the same that anyone can win the championship since it's one and done and is the great equalizer come Tourney time.

[Chitowndevil]

I saw that same breakdown (it's in Luke Winn's power ratings). Winn makes a big deal of Duke having the worst road resume followed by KState. Frankly based on that list I'm not impressed by Texas or Michigan State either. Tennessee's win over Memphis doesn't impress me too much as Memphis has yet to beat a team in the Pomeroy top 100. Kansas at least has a solid road thumping of a good Temple squad.

[Duvall]

I saw that same breakdown (it's in Luke Winn's power ratings). Winn makes a big deal of Duke having the worst road resume followed by KState. Frankly based on that list I'm not impressed by Texas or Michigan State either.

Yup. Winn gives credit for Michigan State's dodgy road wins, but doesn't even mention their embarrassing road loss to one of the worst teams in the ACC.

[Duke4life92]

This is bad. I kinda laughed and never thought that a poor shooting Singler was an issue when DBR was going bonkers. However, not being able to play away is indeed a concern. Anyone who thinks it's not, I'd love to hear your views.

Well,i see 4-4 road record and a 8-0 or 7-1 home record as an acc winning formula this year(jmo).I can see the acc regular season winner having atleast 4-5 losses easy(again jmo)I don't see the relevance of winning anymore road games than that(other than as a fan i'd love to win them all) as no ACC or NCAA tournament games are on the other teams home court(guess reason behind k's scheduling of neutral site non-conference games huh).When it comes down to it players have to step-up on the road.I don't see that as Coack K's fault for he's scheduling.

[pfrduke]

I saw that same breakdown (it's in Luke Winn's power ratings). Winn makes a big deal of Duke having the worst road resume followed by KState. Frankly based on that list I'm not impressed by Texas or Michigan State either. Tennessee's win over Memphis doesn't impress me too much as Memphis has yet to beat a team in the Pomeroy top 100. Kansas at least has a solid road thumping of a good Temple squad.

Thankfully our road resume in January, after 3 games, doesn't mean a whole lot. This will become a concern for me if we end up with 6 or more road losses. Until then, it's more about what we can do with the next 7 road games than what we've done so far, since we can do something about the former and precisely bupkis about the latter.

[cato]

A couple of months ago (I think after the Wisconsin game) I said that Duke's weak non-conference road schedule would come back to bite them in ACC play and the NCAA Tournament. No one on this board agreed with me at that time. . . .



I find that hard to believe. Complaining about weak non-conference road schedule is the 3rd favorite complaint of DBRenizens.* Are you sure that no one agreed with you?


*After (1) failing to give playing time to the absolute stud sitting on the bench, and (2) failing to recruit stud big men, probably because Wojo coaches the bigs.

[Vincetaylor]

Came across some road win breakdowns of the top 10 on SI as follows

Texas (3): Rice, Arkansas, Iowa State
Kentucky (3): Indiana, Florida, Auburn
Kansas (3): UCLA, Temple, Nebraska
Villanova (3): Marquette, Louisville, Rutgers
Syracuse (4): Seton Hall, Rutgers, West Virginia, Notre Dame
Michigan State (3): The Citadel, Northwestern, Iowa
Duke (0)
Tennessee (2): Memphis, Alabama
Pittsburgh (3): Syracuse, Cincinnati, UConn
Kansas State (1): Colorado

I know some like to nitpick about other teams road wins but when in fact we have not one road win to date, we have no basis to complain about being bumped out of the Top 10, moved down to a 3 or 4 seed on someone's bracket projection or left out of the national championship debate. Now, remember this is as of today and there is a lot of schedule left. This can all change, just as the same that anyone can win the championship since it's one and done and is the great equalizer come Tourney time.

I agree with you. It's pretty hard to defend our lack of road games in the pre-season in my opinion. In the pre-season we had 9 home games and 1 road game. That's weak. I'm sure it just has to do with money, but it costed our team valuable experience.

[Kedsy]

Came across some road win breakdowns of the top 10 on SI as follows

Texas (3): Rice, Arkansas, Iowa State
Kentucky (3): Indiana, Florida, Auburn
Kansas (3): UCLA, Temple, Nebraska
Villanova (3): Marquette, Louisville, Rutgers
Syracuse (4): Seton Hall, Rutgers, West Virginia, Notre Dame
Michigan State (3): The Citadel, Northwestern, Iowa
Duke (0)
Tennessee (2): Memphis, Alabama
Pittsburgh (3): Syracuse, Cincinnati, UConn
Kansas State (1): Colorado



Getting back to the original question of this thread, are the above top teams succeeding on the road because they played a bunch of pre-conference road games? I took a look:

Texas (2 pre-conf road games): Rice, Arkansas
Kentucky (1): Indiana
Kansas (3): UCLA, Temple, Tennessee (Lost)
Villanova (1): Temple (Lost); also played Maryland in Washington (not a "true" road game)
Syracuse (0): (played Florida in St. Pete -- not a "true" road game)
Michigan State (3): UNC (Lost), Citadel, Texas (Lost)
Duke (1): Wisconsin (Lost)
Tennessee (2): Memphis, USC (Lost)
Pittsburgh (0)
Kansas State (0?): Played UNLV in Vegas and Alabama at South Alabama, but neither in opponent's home gym and neither counted in list above)


So, to sum up:

Kansas and Michigan State each played 3 pre-conference road games (Mich State lost two of theirs, and their other one was against Pomeroy's #200 ranked team, Kansas lost one of theirs);

Texas and Tennessee played 2 (Texas's two were against Pomeroy's #130 and #246 rated teams, Tennessee lost one of theirs);

Duke, Kentucky, and Villanova played 1 (Duke and Villanova lost theirs, Kentucky played Pomeroy's #125 team)

Syracuse, Pitt, and Kansas State played 0


Funny that Syracuse has 4 road wins and Pitt, Villanova, and Kentucky have 3 each, but none of them played more pre-conference road games than Duke did. And this is without even delving into whether Texas's two road games against bottom-tier teams or Michigan State's trip to the Citadel is better experience than Duke's game at Wisconsin.

It seems clear to me that the pre-conference schedule is a non-factor, or at most a very minor one.