March Madness is officially upon us, and the college basketball tournament itself will begin in just a few hours from the time I’m starting this article. With any luck, they won’t be overshadowed by the drama going on off the court.
It all started on Sunday when the final selections were made, and 68 teams learned they were going to the tournament. But one team, the West Virginia Mountaineers, found out they’d just missed the final cut, coming in at number 69. It happens, right? In this particular case, however, the circumstances surrounding why they came in at 69 rather than 68 are a little sketchy.
Liam McKeone of Sports Illustrated writes:
Despite a 19-13 record with big wins over Arizona and Gonzaga in neutral site games, WVU was left on the outside looking in— and the committee’s reasoning was perhaps worse than the decision. Chair Bubba Cunningham referred to the absence of senior Tucker DeVries as a motivating factor to leave the Mountaineers out, even though DeVries has played all of eight games this year and hasn’t seen the court in three months.
It’s kind of like when Florida State was left out of the College Football Playoff, despite its undefeated record, in part, because its star quarterback was injured.
On the other hand, the North Carolina Tar Heels did make the tournament as the 68th pick. While North Carolina is a huge basketball school and something of a March Madness regular, the team just didn’t have a great season. Scott Thompson of Fox News writes:
UNC, despite the program’s historic pedigree, was just 1-12 in Quadrant 1 games, which the selection committee determines as a game against a team that is ranked in the top 30 of the NET (the NCAA’s evaluation tool) at home, against a team ranked 1-50 on a neutral court, and 1-75 in away contests.
The other catch? Cunningham, who, again, is the chair of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, happens to be North Carolina’s athletic director. However, he and the committee vice chair Keith Gill say that Cunningham left the room for any discussion related to his school’s team per NCAA policies and procedures.
Even though the NCAA and everyone else involved claim it was on the up-and-up, it didn’t sit well with many basketball fans, especially West Virginia fans. And one WVU fan, in particular, made a huge fuss about it: West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey.
On Monday, Morrisey held a press conference to express his anger, alongside a sign that read “National Corrupt Athletic Association” (NCAA, of course, actually stands for “National Collegiate Athletic Association”). He called the snub a “miscarriage of justice, and robbery at the highest level” and said that West Virginia deserved to be in the tournament.
According to Fox News, he also announced that he’s asked West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey “to open an investigation into the NCAA selection committee to see if ‘backdoor deals’ were made.”
WVU’s athletic director, Wren Baker, also expressed his disappointment on X:
And Big 12 — the conference in which WVU plays — Commissioner Brett Yormark also admitted that he was “surprised and disappointed” in the decision. “West Virginia deserved a spot, and fans across the country agree. Coach Devries and his team did an incredible job fighting adversity and winning big games all season. Regardless of this disappointing outcome, I’m incredibly proud of how they represented the Big 12 all season,” he said.
I’m finishing this article just as the First Four teams get the tournament started on Tuesday evening (I got sidetracked with the astronauts returning to Earth), and I suspect that the drama on the court will soon overshadow this whole situation. At least, I hope so. But it’s made for great TV while everyone’s been waiting for the games to begin. Everyone from Dick Vitale to Stephen A. Smith had an opinion today.
So, who do you have in the Final Four? Let me know in the comments.
