As you are already aware, the NCAA Tournament has been canceled, dashing the dreams of players, coaches and fans. The West Virginia Mountaineers finished the season at 21-10 and 9-9 in the Big 12 Conference – a huge turnaround from last season – and were playing some of their best basketball of the year before the season was cut short.
The NCAA will not be releasing a bracket for the 2020 NCAA Tournament, per release.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) March 15, 2020
As disappointing as this is for fans, it is substantially more frustrating and discouraging for the players and coaches. With that said, there should absolutely be an NCAA Tournament Selection Show this Sunday. The players have earned it and this is a perfect opportunity to celebrate the players’ successes this season.
While the games obviously will not be played, the magic of Selection Sunday would still exist. Players and coaches should gather around the television, fans should still anxiously see who and where their favorite team would have played. The Selection Show is one of the most entertaining, exciting parts of March Madness and it should not have been taken away from the players and fans as well.
With this said, the West Virginia Mountaineers would have made some major noise in the NCAA Tournament. In Joe Lunardi’s final Bracketology, he had the Mountaineers as a 7th seed in the East Region. In this bracket, West Virginia would have played the #10 seed Utah State in Tampa in the 1st around.
The NCAA releasing the bracket for the tournament is the very least that they could have done for the players and coaches that worked so hard to accomplish what they did during the season, and fans would have embraced the excitement surrounding the Selection Show, even if the tournament would not be played.
The overreaction to the Coronavirus has taken away one of the best sporting events of the year and showing the Selection Show would have been a nice moment for players and fans during a very dark time in sports history.
