Watching West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey and his attorney general John McCuskey prattle on at a Monday news conference, demanding accountability and threatening legal remedies over — wait for it — the NCAA basketball tournament selection process, you might have wondered if this was all a setup for Kenan Thompson to run out on stage and yell “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Niiiiiiiiight!”
A mere 18 hours after the Mountaineers were controversially snubbed from March Madness in favor of North Carolina, there was really only one thing that could kill the national sympathy being directed toward Morgantown.
And wouldn’t you know it, the politicians didn’t disappoint.
Do you know what sports fans hate more than an NCAA tournament injustice? A gasbag governor and his obsequious sidekick grandstanding to their political base, sticking their nose into a place it doesn’t belong and making a mockery of the real problems in a state that has plenty of them.
Seriously, gentlemen: Do you not have better things to do?
“This was a miscarriage of justice and robbery at the highest levels,” Morrisey said. “This thing reeks of corruption.”
Is that similar to the smell emanated by a former Washington, D.C. lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry who ran for office in West Virginia on a platform of fighting the opioid epidemic? Just wondering.
There used to be a time in America when ambitious politicians, and particularly Republicans like Morrisey and McCuskey, would have railed against the idea of running to the courtroom to litigate any perceived minor injustice.
Ah, well, nevertheless.
Instead, we had Morrisey not only refusing to rule out the possibility of seeking an injunction if the NCAA doesn’t cooperate immediately with McCuskey’s investigation but also suggesting the West Virginia snub might have been retribution for the state suing the NCAA in 2023 over basketball player RaeQuan Battle’s eligibility.
“A lot of people said, ‘What are you doing?’” Morrisey said. “We sent multiple letters they didn’t respond adequately to and we fundamentally helped change the transfer eligibility rules. So I think the answer is when you’re talking about multi-billion dollar businesses and universities that have a big stake in the outcome, absolutely (it’s worthwhile).”
Of course, one big difference: In the Battle lawsuit, West Virginia was challenging whether the NCAA’s transfer rules violated antitrust laws on behalf of a citizen fighting for his rights. But this? This is just a whole lot of whining on behalf of a basketball team that lost 13 of its 32 games including to Colorado in the Big 12 tournament.
And it’s not even really clear what they hope to gain, other than a mention of “objective criteria” for the NCAA tournament selection process. Which, if you have followed the selection process for any length of time, is like trying to explain why “Anora” won Best Picture over “Conclave.” There is no objective criteria. That’s the point.
And West Virginia, like every other Div. 1 school, not only knew that going in but agreed to it.
Now, does that mean the committee got it right? No.
West Virginia’s exclusion was stunning, given that every “bracketologist” who does this either as a job or a hobby had the Mountaineers in the field. And as we addressed Sunday night, the fact that North Carolina athletics director Bubba Cunningham chairs the selection committee isn’t a great look when the final decision was literally UNC over West Virginia.
In cases like this, the recusal procedures to ensure Cunningham wasn’t part of the discussion or votes involving UNC don’t protect the NCAA from accusations of favoritism. That gave Morrisey the opening to pounce, and if it wasn’t him, it could just as easily have been the governor of Texas if the Longhorns got left out instead of the Mountaineers.
“UNC had representation in the room,” Morrisey said. “It’s being reported by a number of outlets that Cunningham had a significant bonus incentive, at least $70,000, to get into the tournament, arguably more if they advanced. I want folks to let that sink in for just a minute.’
Even if Cunningham did everything by the book, the selection process has long been plagued by suspicions that committee members will do their best to take care of buddies who work at other schools. And even if Cunningham never even hinted at lobbying for the Tar Heels, these committee members are colleagues and often friends who spend a lot of time with each other inside and outside the committee room during this process.
So something like what happened Sunday only turbocharges conspiracy theories, and it’s worth looking at whether athletics directors and conference commissioners should be the ones making these tough calls when there’s so much on the line financially.
But that’s a matter for the leaders of college sports to reckon with — not elected officials who love to use this stuff to make it seem like they’re fighting for the common man or woman when we all know it’s political theater.
McCuskey, the attorney general, even sounded more like a message board poster than a chief law enforcement officer in repeatedly referring to the Mountaineers as “we” and making the case that a basketball team with guard Javon Small would have a chance to beat anyone in the country.
In the end, it was deeply embarrassing for the people of West Virginia. Just like it was when some Florida politicians did the same thing after Florida State got left out of the 2023 College Football Playoff. And just like the group of legislators in Georgia, Alabama and Illinois that have recently tried to pass bills giving college athletes an exemption from state income tax on their NIL deals.
In fact, it’s probably not a stretch to say that no group of people has consistently done more to turn public opinion back toward the NCAA on a variety of issues than state-level legislators doing ridiculous things on behalf of college sports because they think it will win them more votes in the next election.
Similar to most of those efforts, Monday’s news conference was almost as funny as a variety show. Only it happened in real life, in the state of West Virginia, instead of on the SNL set where it belonged.