A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a different kind of madness. This past weekend bore witness to the real March Madness, and it was truly wonderful.

Basketball has always been my favorite sport. Baseball is a close second, but basketball is the one sport I was pretty good at, and even though my skills peaked around 8th grade, it still remains the sport I love to play (although that’s infrequent these days) and love to watch. For a basketball junkie the past few days were wonderful, with extraordinary performances by teams and players, some of whom I had never heard of. Wish I could turn back the calendar and watch them all over again.

There were disappointments: Northern Iowa’s terrible collapse with only 44 seconds to play and Stephen F. Austin losing on a last-second tip-in to Notre Dame after leading by five points with under a minute to go. But there were remarkable performances as well, such as Wisconsin advancing over Xavier on a pair of 3-point field goals by Bronson Koenig in the waning moments and the stellar play of St. Joseph’s DeAndre Bembrey even though his team could not quite pull it out over number-one seeded Oregon. Oh, how I was hoping they would have won so I could have watched Mr. Bembrey play some more.

There are few teams I root against and, of course, some teams I root for more than others. This year, for instance, I found out that a starter on one of the teams that made it to the Sweet Sixteen is the nephew of the wife of one of my cousins. I’m rooting for him and his team. And when my team is not in the running, I usually go with the underdog and/or a team that has never won it all before.

In two weeks they will be playing the Final Four and, ultimately, one team will be crowned the champion. Whether or not one of the teams I’ve been rooting for has won, I’ll be a little sad knowing that I’ll have to wait another year before the tournament starts up again.

In the meantime, out of necessity I will return to the other madness that’s gripping our country. And in that arena, there are few remarkable performances and even fewer individuals that you can actually root for. Come November a winner will be declared; I just hope that, as a result, all the rest of us don’t wind up losers!