UNC AD Suggests Tucker DeVries’s Injury Kept WVU Basketball Out of Tournament

Many were shocked when WVU basketball was not selected for the NCAA Tournament during Selection Sunday.

With 19 wins, six Quad-1 wins, four ranked wins and three wins over top-10 opponents, the Mountaineers felt good about the chance of hearing their names called. The experts did too, as many had West Virginia projected on the bracket as late as Sunday morning.

The First Four Out.#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/WdZlTyLTQq

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 16, 2025

Following the Selection Show on CBS Sunday evening, NCAA Tournament Selection Committee chairperson Bubba Cunningham offered an explanation on the Mountaineers’ exclusion.

“They had an outstanding year and unfortunately, Tucker DeVries was hurt and player availability was something we talk about quite a bit,” Cunningham said.

DeVries only played eight games this season before going out with an upper-body injury, last appearring in a game on Dec. 6. On Feb. 4, WVU announced he would have season-ending surgery.

West Virginia went 13-11 without DeVries in the lineup and picked up top-10 wins over Kansas and Iowa State, both of whom made the tournament.

Cunningham is the athletic director for North Carolina, which surprisingly did make the tournament as one of the teams that will play in the First Four in Dayton. The Tar Heels went just 1-12 in Quad-1 games and was thought to be on the wrong side of the bubble. All 111 bracketologists had WVU basketball making the tournament. Of the final four teams that got in instead of the Mountaineers, only 50 had Texas in, 30 had Xavier in and 27 had North Carolina in.

By rule, Cunningham was not allowed to be in the room during any discussion the committee had about North Carolina.

Whether North Carolina should be in or not is a good debate. Their AD is the chairman of the selection committee but cannot be in the room when the Tar Heels are discussed. But it’s human nature that it doesn’t hurt UNC’s chances when other members of the committee have spent so…

— Fran Fraschilla (@franfraschilla) March 16, 2025