For most of New England, The Madness is missing

If you are expecting something profound here today - not that you would, really - go read something else. Because this is pretty much going to be one of those hold-your-breath, stomp-your-feet tantrums.

The best hour in sports, 6 to 7 p.m. on the second Sunday of March, came and went on the second Sunday of March, 2010, with barely a peep. Or at least that's how it felt. Wait all year for The Madness and it turns out to be The Maddening.

Did you watch the NCAA tournament selection show? Maybe you didn't. Hard to blame you, or anyone else, here in this corner of the country.

That's right. New England, with an estimable college basketball history, placed one team in the field of 65. One. And even that's tenuous. Vermont. Is Vermont, whose campus is closer to Canada than it is to Coventry, Cranston, Cambridge, Conway, Concord and Cromwell, even in New England?

(Sigh.)

I can't stand it.

The brackets of our discontent.

Consider the other choices we have: Maine, UNH, Dartmouth, UMass, Holy Cross, BC, Northeastern, BU, Harvard, PC, URI, Brown, Bryant, UConn, Hartford, Quinnipiac, Fairfield, Yale, Sacred Heart, Central.

Consider the tradition: Calhoun, Cousy, Heinsohn, Jack The Shot, Bagley, Dr. J, Reggie, Ernie D, Sly, Marvin, Burrell-to-Tate, Gavitt, Camby, Curley, Khalid: "We shocked the world!", Emeka, Blaney and on and on and on.

And what do we have here in 2010? Bupkiss.

It's really sad. Memo to all the coaches whose teams are home or in the NIT, CBI or any other band of bridesmaids: Start recruiting some players. Because this is unacceptable.

College basketball, like baseball, provides New Englanders historical illumination and common ground. Think about it. New Englanders may disagree on their baseball team of choice - Sox, Yanks, Mets - but agree that a summer night driving home with the ballgame on the radio beats a steak at the Ritz, except, perhaps, when you're hungry.

We love baseball. We talk about it even when there is no season. We tease each other mercilessly. We love it when the Yanks, Sox - or both - are in the playoffs. We watch. We obsess. Why? Because baseball is a passion.

Same with college basketball. Perhaps not to the same degree. But we all have our teams. We all have our schools. Maybe that's it. They're our schools.

We either live in the vicinity of them or we actually attended. We lived there, ate there, slept there, laughed there, cried there, partied there. Our schools are part of us. And when they win - hell, when we win - part of us wins, too. That's one thing we can't say about our baseball teams. We were never part of them the way we were part of our schools.

And while we may dislike our neighbor's choice of hardwood allegiance, we agree that college hoops warm our winter nights. Is there anything better for a Rhode Island fan than when the Rams beat Providence? When BC took down North Carolina? When UConn beat Duke? Is there a better memory in Central Connecticut history than when the fans stormed the floor a few years ago when the Blue Devils made the tournament?

How about talking about the old days at Keaney, Roberts, The Cage, The Fieldhouse and Hart Center?

How about when our teams are awash in brackets, bracketology, regionals … or just in the conversation, period?

Except for the 20-mile radius extending from Back Bay, where the media perpetuates an alarmingly mean anti-college sports constitution, college basketball bears a significant role in the New England sports experience.

Except this year.

Sure, we have the women's tournament, if women's basketball is your thing. But women's basketball is mostly a Connecticut thing. The rest of New England doesn't care. A cynic would suggest the rest of the nation doesn't either. But even as women's basketball and the women's tournament grows, it'll never have the men's tournament's cachet.

This is, traditionally, one of the best weeks of the year. The Little Guys bask in the glow of their invitations. Their stories get told. They get their Warholian 15 minutes. The Big Guys salivate. The nation talks college hoops and fills out brackets.

And now? We're left at the side of the road as the parade goes by.

Booooooooooooooooooo.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.