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MORGANTOWN -- Had a feeling something was up midday on Sunday when I learned that the West Virginia men's basketball team wasn't holding any kind of NCAA "watch party.”
Surely, they had to have an inkling that something was rotten in Denmark … and Indianapolis.
There could be only two reasons for not holding a watch party and neither of them were sitting very well with my stomach.
The Mountaineers had been passed over for the tournament.
The rumors about coach Darian DeVries leaving for Iowa were too hot a subject to put him in front of his fans and media to discuss the situation right now.
The truth is, the DeVries rumors make more sense than what did happen on this Sunday afternoon that followed a golden Saturday when WVU won two NCAA championships in different sports and this gross disrespect of the Mountaineers can only make it more likely that DeVries will take an offer from Iowa (or Indiana, for that matter).
They said DeVries' team was the first team out.
So, let's look at the resume.
New team. New players. No points from last year's team returning to this year's team.
Picked 13th in the preseason conference poll.
Then the giants of the industry started falling as they came across WVU. No. 3 Gonzaga was first. No. 3 Iowa State would fall later. No. 24 Arizona, who would go on to reach the Big 12 championship game, lost to WVU on a neutral court.
And, as far away from a neutral court as you can get, at Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kansas, where they had never won a game, they stunned the Jayhawks.
In all, WVU won 19 games while playing in the Big 12 Conference, which just happens to be considered a Power Four conference.
If they slumped late -- and they did, losing a number of games they shouldn't have -- there was a reason. They had lost their second-best player eight games in, the coach's son, Tucker DeVries, a senior with flair and two Missouri Valley Player of the Year awards.
Yes, they suffered an ugly loss to 16th-seeded Colorado in the Big 12, which hurt, but it wasn't what should have been a fatal injury.
Is there no credit for the heart they displayed, the guts they spilled out on the court every time they took the floor, for the upsets and the stir they caused for half the season?
There was Jayden Stone going down for the year without getting one minute on the court to display his 20-point scoring average with what had to be a serious injury, although no one would stand up and reveal the seriousness of the victory.
There was the blood that flowed from Eduardo Andre's nose when he took a vicious elbow to the nose; the beating that Javon Small took as he played 36 minutes a game on a team that was just eight deep into its rotation, surviving that beating to be maybe the best all-around player in the league.
And that team can't play in their precious little NCAA clambake?
C'mon.
West Virginia is out of the NCAA Tournament, not even being given the chance to compete for the national championship that it deserved while those blue bloods from North Carolina are in.
Do they not know Dean Smith does not coach there any longer and that Michael Jordan is now 62 years old?
Believe me, Jerry West is flipping over in his grave.
This was an NCAA Tournament team. The SEC put 14 teams into the tournament. That's 14. That's a record.
That's also a sham. Carolina was 1-12 against Quad 1 teams.
The worst part of this is what's gone on this year is going to fuel the fires to expand the tournament. You find a way to put the 68 BEST teams into the tournament and you don't need to expand, but you offer up 31 automatic bids and you are begging for injustice.
The time has come for the major conferences to break away from the NCAA, establish their own athletic governing body, straighten out their conference alignments and run the show for their own good … and yours. The fans.