Sports

West Virginia Makes Sad March Madness History As Injured Star Becomes NCAA Scapegoat

#West Virginia Mountaineers
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West Virginia basketball coach Darian DeVries watches from the sidelines.

© William Purnell-Imagn Images


The West Virginia basketball team will not be playing in the NCAA Tournament this March. The Mountaineers were the first team OUT when the selection committee unveiled the field.

The explanation for that omission was lacking. It revolved mainly around an injury that occurred in early December.

West Virginia went 19-13 in the 2024-25 season. That included wins against Kansas, Iowa State, Gonzaga, and Arizona. Most believed they’d done enough to be included in the field. In fact, all 111 bracketologists had the Moutaineers safely in the field.

They made unfortunate history when they were left off the board. Selection committee chair Bubba Cunningham was asked about the decision after the fact.

His explanation did little to ease tensions of the West Virginia faithful. Instead, it further riled the Mountaineers up.

There were two key points that Cunningham noted in his defense of the omission. New selection criteria in the forms of the Torvik and WAB metrics was introduced. An injury to Tucker DeVries also played a part.

The argument on new metrics rang hollow. West Virginia bested the final team in, North Carolina, in both the Torvik and WAB metrics. It led many to believe that Cunningham, the Tar Heels’ athletic director, was looking for any reason to get his school into the tournament over another bubble squad.

Bubba Cunningham said Tucker Devries’ injury wasn’t the most heavily weighted factor in West Virginia’s omission, then immediately contradicted himself.

Cunningham was pressed on the injury by radio host Mad Dog after the brackets were set. The host called it egregious to believe that DeVries’ status would impact the selection committee’s decision.

The committee chair responded by saying player availability was “one of the factors” but not the only one. He then went on to use the injury as his sole reasoning for the omission.

It’s now a sad reality for the Mountaineers, who will now be watching the postseason from home. Tucker DeVries status has been known since well before conference play. West Virginia has played the last three months of the year without him in the lineup. Still, he was the scapegoat used by the NCAA Committee.