During my freshman year at Purdue, I received an email from a friend of mine I had known since first grade who was in his freshman year at Georgia Tech. He was a manager for the Yellow Jackets men’s basketball team — and was devastated.
Georgia Tech was supposed to make the NCAA tournament that year (the 1994-95 season). They had three future NBA players on the roster (Travis Best, Drew Barry and Matt Harpring). Their record wasn’t spectacular, but solid (18-12, 8-8 in a stacked Atlantic Coast Conference). Their resume included a huge win over Wake Forest, a team that had future NBA superstar Tim Duncan on the roster and would go on to be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Jackets were even ranked in the AP Top 25 poll heading into the ACC Tournament. But the school’s name didn’t get called on selection Sunday.
The snub was particularly galling, considering Indiana University, which had gone 19-11, got in on name recognition. Florida also had somehow gotten an at-large bid with a 17-12 record, 8-8 in the Southeastern Conference.
The Jackets were supposed to be in, but they were out. My friend told me he watched players who — some in a shocked, disappointed fog, others shedding tears — packed up their gear for the season. He was particularly heartbroken for the seniors, players like Best and James Forrest, for whom there would be no next year.
No news conference from the governor the next day threatening to sue the NCAA occurred (although, in all honesty, most Georgians are University of Georgia fans). No hue and cry came from politicians appearing on sports news shows talking about how unfair it was. The only real news that came out of the snub was Tech’s decision not to play in the NIT, at a time when that was a much more prestigious end-of-year tournament. In fact, the Jackets were the first team to tell the NIT “no thanks” since 1987.
It’s hard to believe that was almost exactly 30 years ago. And, this week, we have West Virginia University getting snubbed while blueblood North Carolina squeezes in, just like Indiana (presently nowhere near the same planet as its former status as a basketball program) in the ’94-’95 season.
The difference, of course, was Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s presser, alongside West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey, threatening to sue the NCAA and demanding answers from the selection committee. The irony of Morrisey wanting transparency and accountability has already been noted.
And there’s nothing the governor or McCuskey can really do. Play-in games have already started. The NCAA isn’t going to halt the tournament and find a spot for WVU. Sure, there could be investigations, reports, findings of conflicts of interest, blah, blah, blah. What does any of that really do?
The most bothersome thing out of this is the continuing pattern of trying to litigate the results on the scoreboard. West Virginia is coming off a high school football season during which several school districts sued the state athletic association over its playoff formula because their teams didn’t do enough on the field to make it. And the playoffs actually got delayed as the whole embarrassing thing played out in court.
Missing the postseason in any sport sucks for the coaches, the players and the fans — and sometimes it doesn’t seem fair. It’s especially hard for players who don’t have a next season on the horizon or aren’t continuing in the sport to whatever the next-highest level happens to be.
That’s life. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes fate or a critical decision that’s out of your hands falls your way, sometimes not. And it can sting. But individuals are better served if they can learn from disappointment or failure or whatever you want to call it. Winners in life and in sports don’t focus on how they might’ve gotten screwed over, at least not for long. They focus on what’s next, even if it’s not what they thought it might be.
