They got schooled by Villanova home and away during the regular season, but lost by 2 in the second game of the Big East tourney. They played in a lot of tournaments early in the year, rather than concentrating on cupcakes at home like we did. 6 of their 11 non-conference games were away or neutral tourney type sites. Beat South Carolina at New York tourney neutral site. Lost by a little to Florida at tourney in Florida. Should be a tough but winnable game.
So, they don’t play “rent-a-wins” at a “on-campus” facility like we do early in the year, they go play in tournaments or special events at neutral sites. That probably does toughen them up and get them ready for the road in the rest of their season.
You do realize most of our non conference was considered really good last year. You can’t tell how a team will perform from one year to the next. I’ve seen AR attend a preseason tournament with “good teams” and they all ended up pretty mediocre.
They play home games in Newark, so a game in New York City against a team from the south is not really a neutral court game.
They play in a tough league, so you have to expect them to be hard-nosed, and a good basketball team. But their non-conference record was not anything special.