Insanity linked to the third month of the Western calendar.

I think because I’m tall, I often get asked—by people I’ve only just met—whether I ever played on a basketball team when I was growing up. (People who’ve known me longer don’t ask. Telling, probably.) The answer is a resounding NO. I was a dancer and a theatre geek (Er, still am. The theatre part, anyway,) and I stayed as far away from sports as was physically possible. The only team sport I ever participated in outside of the requirements of a gym class was Synchronized Swimming. And yes. They do, in fact, have a team for that. Or, at least, they do in the public school system where I grew up. Even that was short-lived, though: one year in Middle School, and then I believed I had joyously left behind the world of team sports forever.

But I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan—home of the University of—which means that it is impossible to live your life without running up against team sports; from September through November it sometimes feels as if the city exists solely to support the football team. My family has always had season tickets to both University of Michigan football and basketball, and although I enjoy the spectacle of football Saturdays, it’s always the basketball team that has really mattered to me—a somewhat less than ideal situation these last ten years or so. I go to the games whenever I’m back in Michigan, and I follow them on TV when I can (a pretty easy prospect when I was in Cleveland for grad school, somewhat less effective living here in NYC). I cheer for them when they play well, swear when they don’t, and hold a special place in my heart for the now-departed Tommy Amaker (even if he does wear his pants too high). And…that’s about it. The season starts, I’m interested; the season ends, I forget about it until next year. I’m a fan, but not a Fan—and it’s completely limited to the Wolverines. The Pistons? The Knicks? Basketball, in general? I could care less.

Except for three weeks in the spring.

For the last several years (barring the year I was more worried about finishing my MFA and moving back to NYC) I have filled out an NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament bracket. I fully admit I have no idea what I’m doing. I fill it out based on very little information; my sole source of research is the columnists on ESPN.com. I have very few governing rules to the picks I make; most of the time I pick based on whim. But I always pick at least one 5-12 upset (often, I pick two—I tend to root for the underdog). And I, like my mother, tend to believe in narrative arc; if a team’s got a good story, I might favor them. (Remember the last time the University of Michigan won the NCAA tournament? I do. Barely. It was the year that they fired their head coach, Bill Frieder, just before March Madness began, because he accepted a coaching job at Arizona State. Steve Fisher, previously the assistant coach, stepped in and guided the team all the way to the title. Okay, they started as a number three seed that year anyway, but still: good story.) I fill out a bracket based almost entirely on instinct and guesswork—mostly for bragging rights within the family (I have yet to win them) and to watch my ranking plummet on ESPN.com—and yet there’s still a tiny part of me that thinks, “This is the year I’ll show them all.”

So this is fair warning: North Dakota State, I need you to pull off an upset. Missouri, I’m counting on you to make a run to the Elite Eight. And MSU, pull up your shorts and tie on your shoes, because I’m looking for you to go all the way. After all, it’s the “Road to Motown” this year. Once you make it to the Final Four, you’re basically playing on a home court. Now how’s that for a story?