This is an opinion column.

You don’t have to be a sports junkie to love this time of year. To love this tournament—to love the Davids slinging shots at the Goliaths of college basketball in the sport’s every-body-in-the-pool party for the national championship.

Madness!

I covered the NBA for most of my years as a sports journalist. Initially, I was a fish out of water, a kid weaned on college football in Oklahoma thrust into a game I rarely played and wasn’t very good at—yeah, I was that Black kid who couldn’t hoop.

Don’t tell anyone I told you this: I’d never even seen an NBA game when I was first asked to cover the league as a fresh-outta-college reporter at Sports Illustrated. Senior Editor Sandy Padwe, who remains a journalism mentor, asked if I was familiar with the sport. “Sure, I know pro basketball,” I told him. (I lied.)

Throughout my years chronicling the league from courtside (before league owners started selling the space to rich folks) I occasionally checked in on college ball. New York was the heart of the Big East when the league was at its height, a time when the Amtrack run from Boston (Boston College) to New York (St. John’s) to Philly (Villanova) to Washington, D.C. (the indomitable Georgetown Hoyas) was college hoops heaven. (Aside: Happy trails, Jim Boeheim.)

My high point covering college basketball occurred on Monday, April 1 (not a typo), 1985 when I was courtside at Rupp Arena in Lexington to chronicle the NCAA tournament championship game between heavily, heavily, heavily favored Patrick Ewing-led Georgetown and Big East compatriot Villanova for The New York Times. It proved to be the biggest sports upset in my lifetime: A “perfect game” 66-64 Villanova victory. (Got a bigger upset? Hit me with it.)

After a 9-1 start, the Wildcats finished the regular season at 18-9, 9-7 in the Big East. They lost to the Chris Mullen-led St. Johns in the second round of the Big East tournament and were slotted as a No. 8 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

By contrast, The Hoyas were the unchallenged top team in the nation. They lost just twice during the season, back-to-back, in fact — to formidable No. 3 St. Johns (66-65) and No. 11 Syracuse. Yet they were the consensus No. 1 and after rolling through three games of the Big East tournament by an average of more than 16 points, they were the NCAA Tournament’s top overall seed.

The Wildcats took the Hoyas to overtime in their first regular season encounter before losing 52-50 and suffered a 57-50 loss in February. But what they gained in those games was infinitely more valuable than anyone calculated: familiarity. Most teams were so intimidated by these Hoyas, the outcome was pretty much sealed during pre-game warmups. Yet to Villanova, led by talented forward Ed Pinkney, Georgetown was family — a bullying big brother maybe, but still fam. On this night, the baby brothers had had enough — and what ensued was an unparalleled thing of beauty.

Villanova shot a stunning 79 percent from the field to cancel the coronation. The Hoyas still were ranked No. 1 in the final season poll, a rarity for a team that loses the national title.

The lowest (or most challenging) moment of my college coverage was chronicling the sudden death of Maryland star Len Bias on June 19, 1986, just two days after the dominating forward was tabbed No. 2 overall in the NBA draft by Boston. The Celtics’ genius architect, Arnold (Red) Auerbach, touted Bias as the heir to Larry Bird. He was that good.

Then he was dead. I still recall a police official telling me that day— anonymously — ”There appeared to be evidence that Bias and several others were using cocaine in the dormitory room preceding his death,” I wrote.

In time, we learned Bias had indeed died of cocaine intoxication.

Athletes and tragedy, unnecessary tragedy, are not new. Last week, I spoke to Charles Barkley about the unfortunate actions involving guns that led to Memphis Grizzly point guard Ja Morant, one of the NBA’s brightest young stars. Morant was on social media waving what appeared to be a gun in what appeared to be a strip club in Denver following a loss to the Nuggets. Last Wednesday, Colorado police announced no charges would be filed against Morant; the NBA has yet to announce its sanctions.

“I’m not sure what he was thinking,” Barkley told me, and more. “He couldn’t have been thinking.”

RELATED: Charles Barkley: Suspended NBA star Ja Morant “needs to grow up and get better friends.”

The NBA Hall of Famer also spoke on the tragic killing of Jamea Jonea Harris, the 23-year-old mother of a five-year-old boy, on a Tuscaloosa street on January 15. Two young men are charged with capital murder. One of them is former Alabama Tide player Darius Miles, who’s accused of supplying the gun to the man accused of pulling the trigger. Eight times.

“You wake up one morning and you’re having a good life, then a woman gets killed and you’re probably going to jail for the rest of your life,” the NBA Hall of Famer and TNT analyst told me, and more. “One bad decision and lives are lost.”

RELATED: Charles Barkley: Alabama’s Brandon Miller ‘lucky’ he was not charged. Should have received ‘time out’

The tragedy is a lingering cloud over Alabama basketball, which will open the 2023 NCAA Tournament in Birmingham as the overall No. 1 seed. Beneath a cloud no March madness participant has had to endure.

The university’s abysmal mishandling of revelations star freshman Brandon Miller (he was said to have driven the gun to Miles that night but was not charged with a crime) and at least one other player also alleged to have been at the scene of the nightmare have tainted the Tide.

Tainted with a madness most fans will ignore as their Tide seek a greatness the program has never attained.

Tragic madness. Not the kind this month should stand for.

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