The Sport Report

Not everyone pays attention to sporting events like the Super Bowl, the World Series, or the NBA Finals; but, even if it’s for the sole purpose of making a bracket that will score you a few bucks in your office pool, everyone pays attention to the Big Dance. It’s not because anyone particularly likes basketball more in March than any other time, though it’s possible that March Madness is indeed contagious. It’s not even a case of office-pool monetary gain, though that surely doesn’t hurt. It’s that, more than any other sporting event, the NCAA Tournament offers us a sense of drama and a sense of dreams.If you’re a fan of the Dukes and Kentuckys of the world, the Big Dance offers you a chance to see your team of 20 somethings pursue the pinnacle of athletic achievement. If you instead embrace the underdog, then you can have the pleasure of seeing the George Masons, the Northern Iowas, the Butlers of the world wreck havoc on the order of the basketball universe and achieve more than they ever dreamed possible. Even in the face of the longest odds, every team in the Big Dance knows that it just takes six or seven good games to win the prize. Maybe a 16 seed has never beat a 1 seed yet, but maybe, just maybe, this year will be that year. And, in the end, that’s what makes the Big Dance so appealing, so addicting, so wonderful; that endless air of possibility.