First things first

They call it March Madness and it hasn't even begun yet and some people are mad already.

Out in West Virginia, the basketball fans are all worked up because their team from West Virginia University was not invited to the "big dance" - the NCAA basketball tournament. 68 teams get the coveted invitation, and the folks in WV are just as mad as all-get-out because they weren't invited, by cracky!

Other interesting towns in WV include Odd, Hoo Hoo, and Jumbo.

This seems to happen every year, every tournament. Someone gets left out, or some team loses the chance to advance in the playoffs because of a "bad call," and people can't get over it.

So what will they do up there, or out there, or down there? They will go to court to make sure that justice is done!

(Actually, Justice is the name of their junior senator - 6'7" Jim Justice, descendant of coal mining people who was once a billionaire but now scrimps by on a net worth of 513 million dollars. Maybe he could sponsor a tournament.)

Anyway, the state says they're starting an investigation, with  Attorney General JB McCuskey asking the NCAA to explain their process for selecting the Great 68.

As you would expect in a story concerning college basketball, someone named Bubba is involved here. The athletic director at the University of North Carolina is one Bubba Cunningham, who is the chairman of the selection committee.

👉North Carolina was chosen to go to the tournament.

👉Cunningham was said to have been recused from any deliberation involving NC. 

"Nearly every single sports fan, pundit and Bracketologist had WVU as a shoo-in for the tournament," Gov. Patrick Morrisey said after the Mountaineers were the first team uninvited. "This was a miscarriage of justice and robbery at the highest levels."

According to an article in the New York TIMES, "West Virginia ranks among the most distressed states in child poverty rates and median incomes, in population loss and in working-age adults out of the labor force."

But sure, worry about basketball. The state is regarded as having the worst healthcare in the entire nation, a rough economy, high opioid addiction, and crushing poverty for many residents, but how about that daggone NCAA?  

The governor and the attorney general took time from their busy schedules to have this funny sign made up for the press conference.