This is an opinion column.

Every so often a basketball game comes along, and it’s more than a game. It’s an event, an experience, an enchanted evening encapsulating every possible human emotion, for better or worse. It’s not one of 18 conference games. It’s one of one. Period.

If you were there and your team won, you can’t wait to get to work on Monday to tell everyone all the delicious details. If you weren’t there, years later, you might say you were.