I love NCAA tournament time, or March madness, if you prefer. Forget Christmas, Spring Break and Arbor Day; to me, it's the real "most wonderful time of the year." Sixty-five teams Duke-ing it out for the right to appear in the final four and ultimately capture the national championship. Along this arduous path, former contenders are strewn, Cinderella's are made and legends are born.

There's just something about the collegiate atmosphere and pageantry surrounding the event that appeals to me, and even though it was somewhat of a buzz-kill when Penn State wasn't offered an at-large-bid this year (who knew that their 208 RPI would come back to haunt them?), the field is still tremendously exciting.

And this is a true national event, no one part of the country has geographical preference over another as in other championships: games are played from New Mexico to Massachusetts and everywhere in between.

Yes, soon the insanity will be here. In a few days, CBS will transform itself into a veritable basketball command center, with wall-to-wall, sunrise-to-sunset, nightly-toothbrush to morning-OJ, George Bush-in-Iraq to George Bush-in-Iran coverage. It's very much like the night before November election day, only for a week straight.

However, unlike the outcome of an election, the outcome of the NCAA tournament is, its safe to say, fairly pointless. It has no bearing on our lives, and the only significance it holds is that which we attach to it.

And this is where my confusion asserts itself: I'm aware of the tournament's unimportance, but I watch it anyway. I'll spend entire days (in between classes) in front of the TV, looking for back-door passes and last-second buzzer-beaters.

Before the tournament even starts, I'll probably spend far too much time analyzing which 12-seed will beat a five-seed, thus ensuring my winning pool entry.

I guess my question is why do we watch sports at all? We as a nation are obsessed with athletic events and the statistics attached to them. I'm not criticizing, because as you can see from above, I'm complicit in this fanaticism. I mean, I can tell you the majority of the 1991 Atlanta Braves roster, including world series-MVP Terry Pendleton and not so noteworthy Otis Nixon -- and I don't even like the Braves. I can list the depth chart three-deep for the Penn State football team the past five years, including one of my favorite all-time players -- Ricky Upton. And I can certainly tell you that Kenny Mayne was the greatest Sportscenter anchor ever. But I would classify this fandom as a personal and generalized one, because I don't really follow many teams anymore and the ones that I do I'm not vocal about.

This is in stark contrast to most NFL fans. State College is awash with these people -- mostly Eagles and Steelers fans -- who find it necessary to incessantly scream chants every night outside my window. In fact, I'm sure that for some reason I'll be hearing them during the tournament. I bet Donovan really appreciates you.

These fans identify with an artificial grouping of athletes (hardly any of the players nowadays actually hail from the city they represent) so strongly that they actually go into depression if their team loses. In fact, I'm thinking of opening up a sports psychology office, not to help players cope with the crushing disappointment of defeat, but to console these fans. Tapping into this unrealized market might even allow me to accrue enough money to be featured on that episode of Family Guy with Bill Gates and Ted Turner.

But depression is the least serious result of sports. Worse yet are the fights that begin over arguments regarding sports. In some parts of the world, rivalries can even become deadly, as hard-core soccer fans can attest to.

So back to the question, why do we watch sports? It seems to be doing us more harm then good. Even at its best, it just seems to be a waste of knowledge and time. With all the useless sports trivia I have stored in my head I could probably have memorized MacBeth and Gray's Anatomy, and still have enough space left over for a few chapters of the phonebook.

So perhaps it's time for me to stop being wrathful in March. Maybe I could use the time saved from watching the tournament more constructively.

I could read, study, tie some flies for my fly-fishing class, watch some hockey (sike) or maybe even play a little basketball myself. Because no matter how cool it is to see someone my age have a monster jam, its much cooler when I do it (ok, so I can't dunk, but I do have a mean lay up).

The thing is, I can rationalize like this all I want in this brief respite between conference and national tournaments.

But when tip-off happens in a little more than 24 hours, I'll just throw all this rationalization out the window. So maybe I'll try to break free from the tournament's grasp ... next year.