Ah, the NCAA March Madness tournament …there’s just nothing quite like it.

The brackets, the upsets, the buzzer beaters, but most of all, watching these kids giving everything they’ve got for a chance to advance to the next round is just fun to watch, and to be perfectly honest, if it doesn’t get your blood pumping, I have to question your sports fandom.

The competitive nature of the games alone is more than enough to express my statement. The main purpose of sports as a fan is for entertainment, and to see many of these student athletes playing for nothing other than a chance to cut down the nets and hold a trophy brings sports back down to its simplified state; competition. Many of the players on the court won’t get drafted or will see a dime of income (which is a whole other discussion), but doing it for bragging rights and the love of the game.

Personally, I’ve had a tradition with my CPS co-host Mike that I look forward to every year. We cut out of our day jobs early and hit up a bar or pub, pig out on food and drink beer. A lot of beer. But we thoroughly enjoy this time. We don’t care about our brackets, we just want to see some great games, even better when there are upsets involved, and this year has been no disappointment.

Seeing small programs like Furman and Farleigh Dickerson pulling off big first round upsets and playing for a chance at the Sweet 16 only creates more excitement. It puts those schools on the map whereas before, many people may not have known about them. Just think of Loyola from a few years ago and how great of a story that was.

I would even argue that the NCAA tourney is a better product than the NBA regular season. From the full court press defense, the quick transitions, to the fast pace of play keeping the game interesting from buzzer to buzzer, with rarely any lulls.

It’s been strange this year as not one Big 5 team from the Philly area made the tourney, but it hasn’t diminished the fun one bit. However, A local team in 15-seeded Princeton punched their ticket to the Sweet 16 last night, after defeating heavily favorites Arizona in the opening round and then taking care of Missouri.

These are the things that make this time of year special. Many of us don’t have ties to the teams competing, but you find yourself rooting for the kids trying to capture their dreams no matter if they end on college or if they will continue on to the NBA. And that makes it as pure as it gets.