It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Sound like a Christmas song?  It does, I know, but I'm not talking about the Christmas season.  I'm talking about March.  So many wonderful things happening.  Most (read: regular) people think of Spring and flowers blooming and warmer temps and windows open and things like that.  I, of course, am referring to sports. 

Today is the first day of this year's NCAA basketball tournament.  In the next four days, there will be 48 college basketball games played on several different tv channels.  Me, and literally millions of other fans like myself, will be flipping between these channels over the next four days watching, reacting, cheering, yelling at the tv, checking our picks, watching replays on Sportscenter, talking with our friends and probably ordering take-out.  For college basketball fans, life stops for the next four days...or, life begins. 

These games matter to us.  They're important and thrilling.  Everything our team has worked for comes together right now.  You lose and your season is over.  Survive and advance.  Any team can beat any team on any given day, especially this year.  And it's all on the line this weekend. 

This tournament and all the talk and brackets and excitement over the games and their outcomes brings so many people together.  We're all fans.  We all care.  We all have an opinion.  We love our teams.  We love to compare brackets and talk about the games.  People who seemingly don't have much in common talk about their picks or the crazy finish to some game. 

It's been this way for me and my family for almost as long as I can remember.  I remember being just a little girl and watching (and listening) to games with my dad.  I'd ask questions and he'd patiently answer them.  My earliest basketball memories are of watching Ralph Sampson and his University of Virginia teams play, and listening to Bradley basketball games on the radio and being so excited when they won the NIT in 1982.  Now as a grown woman with children of my own, he'll call and ask if we're watching some exciting game, or we'll talk about the game when I'm at his house, or we'll sit and watch games together.  We all have our brackets and make our picks.  Even my kids, and my family members who don't watch all the games all year like some of us do.  My mother, for example, often picks her winners based on school mascots or team colors.  Somewhat surprisingly, she will frequently do better in her picks than some of us (read: me) who study statistics like RPI and points-per-posession and pay attention to Joe Lunardi's opinions. 

It's a crazy, wonderful, exciting, passionate time of year.  And I love it.  I love everything about it.  I love the game of basketball on every level from grade school to the NBA.  It's complex and exciting and amazing. 

But as much as this is the most exciting time of the college basketball season, it is also the beginning of the end.  When this tournament is sadly all over, however, we have baseball season beginning!  I'm sure y'all know that baseball is my love.  I could write a whole separate blog about my love for that game!  It's a totally different game.  Slower, much more majestic, but just as complex and exciting in it's own way.  But basketball, especially college ball, is a very close second in my heart. 

This is what makes this the best time of the year for me.  We have these amazing, exciting few weeks filled with important basketball games that everybody cares about and watches and when it all ends, we slide right into the best season around.  I'm in sports heaven right now.  And that's why this, for me, is the absolute best time of the year.