ESPN's Dana O'Neil, a longtime Big East observer, rates Marquette's out of conference schedule as a 10 (1-10 scale 10 being highest). her comments (followed by a link to the article if you want to see what she has to say about others in our conference):
MARQUETTE
Toughest: Ohio State (Nov. 16), New Mexico (Nov. 21), at Wisconsin (Dec. 7)
Next toughest: Arizona State (Nov. 25), Wooden Legacy (Nov. 28-Dec. 1 in Fullerton and Anaheim, Calif.)
The rest: Southern (Nov. 8), Grambling State (Nov. 12), New Hampshire (Nov. 21), IUPUI (Dec. 14), Ball State (Dec. 17), Samford (Dec. 28)
Toughness scale (1-10): 10 -- Love when a good team plays a good schedule. Buzz Williams has a delicious mix, traipsing across leagues (Big Ten, Pac-12 and Mountain West) and mixing in a decent tourney as well. The only oddity is that the Wooden Legacy title game might merely be a Big East preview, with Creighton and Marquette seemingly headed toward each other.
http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/88029/nonconference-schedule-analysis-big-east-3?ex_cid=espnapi_public
