Pre-Madness: NCAA puts the framework for excitement in place

Prepare to have your brackets busted.

Unless Virginia or Villanova cut the net, any other team's fandome's 'I-told-you-so's' at the end of this dance just won't ring true.

It's not because the field isn't any good -- it's because so many of this year's teams are.

And yes, we are painfully aware this year has been tainted by an ongoing FBI investigation into an alleged pay-to-play scandal, but so what. If the old saying is true, sports being a metaphor for life, then so be it, right? It fits the current schema.

But let's allow -- amid all the scandal and policy analysis and testifying and campaigning going on -- these few weeks' respite to indulge in the mania that is March Madness.

Our fair state, after all, has six teams (for the moment) in play in the NCAA Tournament. And there are an abundance of sleeper teams to keep an eye out for.

Alabama and Auburn can both be tough or forget to show up. Then there are Penn and Purdue. Purdue? That's right, Purdue. You hadn't heard?

Tennessee has looked strong, albeit not against Kentucky, Sunday when the Wildcats claimed its conference's title.

No true Cinderella has emerged, but that is what the first rounds are for. Will it be Long Island University -- Brooklyn? Rhode Island, or some other Northeast to become this year's Florida Gulf Coast University?

Butler, Davidson or Cincinnati? Miami, Michigan, Michigan State?

At least one thing is certain if nothing else is this time of year. There will be plenty of beer, wings and braggadocio to go around between now and April 2.

After that it will be one school's loyal who hold the right to be the loudest and the proudest. Best of luck to you all.

Published in Editorials on March 11, 2018 10:36 PM