West Virginia GOP Governor Wants NCAA Tourney Overhauled After WVU Snub

 West Virginia Republican Governor Patrick Morrisey wants more “objective criteria” to determine which college basketball teams secure a bid to the NCAA basketball tournament.

Morrisey appeared on Daily Wire’s sports podcast Crain and Company on Tuesday after the West Virginia Mountaineers (19-13), a team on the bubble, did not make the bracket. The team finished 10-10 in Big 12 Conference matchups.

“That was outrageous for a lot of reasons. And that’s why it’s important that we step up and get to the bottom of things, because I don’t think we should have this kind of travesty, this kind of robbery, ever occur in the future,” Morrisey said. The governor has called for an investigation into the tournament selection process.

Critics have blasted the NCAA tournament selection committee for including the North Carolina Tar Heels (23-13) in the bracket over the Mountaineers. The Mountaineers had a more impressive resume when the strength of their schedule was taken into account. WVU had six Quad 1 wins, the most impressive wins as measured by the NCAA, and no losses below Quad 2. UNC, on the other hand, went 1-12 in Quad 1 matchups and a Quad 3 loss, which means a loss to a relatively weak team.

In early December, WVU star Tucker DeVries, the son of WVU’s head coach, Darian DeVries, sustained a season-ending injury. That was the primary reason WVU did not make it into the tournament, according to Bubba Cunningham, the NCAA tournament selection committee chairman. Cunningham also serves as North Carolina’s athletic director.

Even with DeVries out, experts expected the Mountaineers to receive a tournament invite.

“Everyone had WVU safely in the bracket. One hundred eleven out of 111 bracketologists – these are these people that do this for a living, they come up with these formulas – universally say WVU is in,” Morrisey said. “By the way, UNC, 27 of the 111 bracketologists say that.”

Cunningham’s dual roles as chairman of the selection committee and athletic director for UNC have incited allegations that the WVU snub may be about more than incompetency or favoritism. Cunningham said he was not in the room when the decision on UNC was made and asserted that “all the policies and procedures were followed.”

In a press conference earlier this week, Morrisey raged against the NCAA from behind a podium with a sign that read “National Corrupt Athletic Association.”

“You have an athletic director walk out the door at the supposed just right time, and then their team gets secured as the last team in, and, meanwhile WVU is the last team out,” Morrisey said. “So, I want sunlight, I want disinfectant. That’s what this is all about. Let’s fix it for the future.”