This is an opinion column.

Let’s get right to the question of the day, a fun conversation starter during March Madness. Is it better to lose in the first round of the NCAA Tournament or win the NIT?

Don’t ask me. Ask Andy Kennedy and UAB. They’re on the brink of history. By midnight Birmingham time tonight, they may be able to answer that question with authority.

The Blazers went one-and-done in the Big Dance last year. They can capture the NIT championship tonight in Las Vegas. Beat North Texas, which they did three weeks ago in the C-USA Tournament semifinals, and the Blazers will do something no Division I program in this state has done.

Earn a trophy and a banner as the last team on the last line of a postseason bracket. No one else left to survive. Nowhere else still to advance but up a ladder with a pair of scissors. That’s where the best kind of basketball memento awaits.

Your snippet of net. Your piece of history. No, it won’t earn Jelly Walker or Ty Brewer a cameo on “One Shining Moment,” but it’s still kind of a big deal. In some ways, going 5-0 after Selection Sunday just means more than a quick round-trip to Pittsburgh for a 14-point defeat.