Can you feel it?

One of the best times of the year..
A time where each team, each community has a chance at becoming immortal. A chance of being spoken of for years to come.
It’s almost here.

The basketball regular season is coming to a close very fast. Conference championship games are coming to a close and regions are beginning to take final shape. For small communities, these teams have as good of a shot as any to make it up to Charleston. While the sectionals and regionals aren’t as significant as they used to be in some places (In other places, it’s probably harder than actually playing in the State Tournament), it will still show the best out of many of these communities. Every year, we see a Cinderella come through, or a major upset that will knock out a state favorite. There will be hundreds of story lines that come out of the first week of post-season play. There WILL be huge showdowns that will determine the fate of teams moving forward. There WILL be heartbreak that no one saw coming. It’s almost as good as it gets.

 

Then we go to Charleston.

It’s almost synonymous with West Virginian culture. For that third week in March, for sports fans growing up, you always went up to Charleston. As young as I can remember, I can remember going to the Charleston Civic Center with my grandfather and father to watch all the games. I can remember going Joey’s (Blast from the Past), and destroying my first chicken wings in between sessions. Booking hotels from Wednesday night through Saturday, double checking all of our families brackets during the 1^st and 2^nd rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament. Everyone has had their own experiences over the years, it’s all unique to each family, but it’s special to us in the Mountain state.

 

For the Players.

This is the biggest stage that many of them will ever see. People talk and dream about for years but it’s unlike any stage that you will play on. The best of the best play, the pageantry, the emotion, and the arena. Legends have been made in that arena and legends will be made again this year. These games will be talked about for decades. You will be spoken of in the same conversation of games that will be talked about over a lifetime. This is going to be on the biggest of stages, playing with the biggest of names, playing in games that will be talked about over many generations.

 

It’s Almost Here. Welcome to March Madness.