Mountaineers not selected for the NCAA tournament – Shepherdstown Chronicle

West Virginia University guard Javon Small makes his way across the court in WVU Coliseum. Courtesy photo
MORGANTOWN — Few there were, that foresaw West Virginia’s desultory loss to 16th seeded Colorado in its first Big 12 tournament game, keeping the team from being selected to participate in the NCAA tournament. But when the qualifying teams were assigned to the bracketed regionals on Sunday evening, there was no calling of the name “West Virginia,” only a stunned quiet and hushed gasps from a team that believed it had accomplished enough, during an uneven regular season that had left the Mountaineers with a 19-13 record before the loss to the Buffaloes in the league tournament.
That unexpected loss and the season-ending shoulder injury suffered by Tucker DeVries had to be the two major reasons West Virginia was kept on the sidelines, as the NCAA tournament and its 68 teams begin regional play this week.
West Virginia had beaten Colorado in Boulder during the regular season.
The selection committee has taken special notice of any team that has missed injured players. Yet Tucker DeVries only played in nine games, as the Mountaineers went out to an 11-2 record in the earliest weeks of the regular season.
Other criteria that determined West Virginia’s eventual left-out status must have out-weighed its 10-10 conference record, wins over Kansas (at Kansas), wins over Iowa State (in Morgantown when the Cyclones were the No. 2 ranked team in the country) and six wins against Quadrant 1 teams.
The Mountaineers played 23 games during the regular season without DeVries. The team’s record without him was 13-10, an indication of what it could do without him in the lineup.
With Houston, Duke, Auburn and Florida as the selection committee’s No. 1 seeds in its four regions, there was little realistic reason to believe the Mountaineers could win the national championship, but the prestige of playing in the national tournament is a valuable recruiting tool and these days can be used when trying to convince players in the transfer portal to come to West Virginia University. Each of the teams in the tournament field also receives money from the NCAA, just for reaching the field.
When all the ballyhoo of the tournament has settled down and only one team is left standing to celebrate a national championship, little will be remembered by the college basketball world, but at this moment in time even people in California and Massachusetts are talking about the reasons West Virginia wasn’t selected into the field that includes McNeese State, Yale, Liberty, Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, Grand Canyon, Mt. St. Mary’s, High Point, Troy, Lipscomb, American, UNC-Wilmington, Robert Morris, Montana, St. Francis, Alabama State, Wofford, Bryant and Omaha — all champions of some conference or other.
Each recognized conference sends its champion to the NCAA tournament. Schools that lose to Colorado in 2025 don’t send their team to the NCAA tournament.
MORGANTOWN — Speculation. Guess work. A final week with two games that are completely different in nature. That …
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