Webster's New World Dictionary defines the word "madness" as dementia, insanity and lunacy -- like getting to work three hours before you're scheduled just so you can watch the NCAA tournament with the sound turned all the way down.

Another definition is great anger -- like when three of your picks to move on in the tournament all fizzled out in the first round.

Webster's says madness can also mean wild excitement -- like watching a kid from a small school in Virginia knock down the biggest shot of his life against one of college basketball's elite.

No wonder they call the tournament March Madness.

Mr. Webster's definitions are all well and good but madness to me means something much different. The NCAA tournament is almost like a second Christmas, with the anticipation of the selection and the bevy of games played on the first Thursday and Friday of March. Teams from all corners of the country come together to decide who will be crowned the national champion.

I'm sure my mom thought I was a little mad when I sat with pen and pad watching the selection show last Sunday waiting for the brackets to be unveiled. She probably thought I was even madder when I would converse with my buddy Brad via cell phone after each bracket was released. Literally the bracket would be shown then they would go to commercial and Brad would call. We would talk for a few minutes about the teams we liked, teams we disliked and where the upsets might happen. As soon as the show came back on we hung up the phones and copied down the next region. After all that, we had a one hour session where we dissected the entire tournament.

Madness is picking up a USA Today Monday morning because it breaks down each game with each team every year and has more facts and figures than you can find in any other publication. Madness may be reading this thing until my eyes hurt, trying to find some reason to pick between Xavier and BYU.

Madness may be what possesses me to stay up until almost 2 a.m. Tuesday morning going back over the bracket with Brad, via cell phone, just to see where we were at after reading the USA Today, then have a running commentary the whole day at work via e-mail trying to construct the perfect bracket. You would think that all this time and effort would make us the smartest people in the world when it came to picking games, but that's where you're wrong.

Even with all the studying and dissecting, you can't judge a team's heart or will. Neither one of us picked Duke to lose its first game; sure we both thought it might happen, but we didn't mark it down. We both thought Davidson would be able to take apart Maryland, but the Terps moved on and my Cinderella team was back to scrubbing floors in Charlotte. Maybe that's the most maddening part of it all.

Madness may be pulling for a team you know nothing about on the first day of the tournament just because you moved them on to the next round in your bracket, or watching a player that wasn't listed on the players to watch list in your USA Today rip through a team you thought was a lock to make the next round. Maybe madness is watching a team you didn't think deserved to be in the tournament look good in a first round win against a team you thought may have been snubbed. All these things happen during the madness induced month of March, thanks to the NCAA tournament.

Maybe the madness stems from knowing you're going to be just outside of Atlanta the day of the national semifinals, finding a ticket on the web for less than $200, but not being able to just purchase one. That's all I need is one, not two, not three, just one. Why can't I just get the one!?

Or the madness just may come from the fact that this tournament is the most exciting college event of the whole year and you hate that it's going to end in just a few weeks, because that's when you know that you have to wait another 11 months before the upsets, slam dunks and buzzer-beaters.

Madness truly is something that everyone can get behind. Everyone fills out their bracket and looks to have bragging rights for the whole year. Too bad the pool I'm in is always won by somebody who picks teams according to colors and mascots. That may be the most maddening part of it all.

T&D Sports Writer Travis Boland can be reached by email at tboland@timesanddemocrat.com or by office phone at 533-5522. Discuss this and other stories online at TheT&D.com.

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