As I sit in my living room watching Davidson and Marquette at Rupp Arena 900 miles away in Lexington, Ky., I’m trying really hard to get excited for March Madness.

I feel as if I should be a lot more pumped for the next three weeks than I am. After all, college basketball in March is as much a part of Americana as its counterpart in football.

Part of the problem is that America pays more attention to college football during its regular season while the casual sports fan only seems to watch college hoops closely for two weeks, and only if a true Cinderella emerges.

Maybe it’s getting caught up in the Jeff Green melodrama with the Celtics. Maybe it’s wondering whether the Bruins can solve their third-period woes and make another run all the way into mid-June. Maybe it’s still debating in my mind just how the Patriots are going to look after the draft, with no Wes Welker and wondering what other moves are in store.

And, yes, the Red Sox start in two weeks and could be bringing Jackie Bradley Jr. north with them (and just maybe Xander Bogaerts sometime this season).

The point is, there is so much to follow, especially here in New England, that adding three weeks of college hoops to it is almost a sports coma.

But I should feel more, especially given my background. After all, March Madness has provided two of the very, very best moments of my sports life.

It was in that very same Rupp Arena that -- as a college freshman -- I sat six rows back on April 1, 1985, for one of the biggest upsets in American sports history. Villanova beat Georgetown, 66-64, in a game so great that a book was just published and released entitled, “The Perfect Game -- How Villanova’s shocking 1985 upset of Georgetown change the landscape of college hoops forever”

My CSN colleague Jessica Camerato thought it was the perfect holiday gift for me. She was right.

Frank Fitzpatrick -- a renowned Philadelphia sports writer -- details what made that time a very magical time for not only Villanova but college basketball.

He writes about what I lived. 

Villanova made it back to the Final Four 24 years later and I was courtside covering one of the best and most dramatic basketball games ever played at TD Garden. Villanova beat Pittsburgh, 78-76, in the East Regional final on a last-second basket by Scottie Reynolds, who drove the length of the court for the game-winning basket -- a la Danny Ainge for BYU against Notre Dame in the 1981 tournament.

Maybe it’s being bitter -- and most definitely cynical -- about the dissolution of the Big East that spawned the greatest competitive era in college basketball. Early on, Georgetown, Syracuse, Villanova, Boston College, Providence College and St. John’s were annual participants in March Madness.

Seton Hall and Pittsburgh rose to national prominence in the late '80s and early '90s.

Then UConn took over in the mid-1990s under former Northeastern mentor Jim Calhoun, and didn’t relent until its third national title in 2011.

But then, representing the greed that is college athletics, the Big East expanded to include bigger (revenue-generating) football schools like West Virginia, Cincinnati, Louisville and Notre Dame.

The Big East turned into the Big Beast, as in unwieldy and too big. The final “Big East” tournament was held at Madison Square Garden last weekend with Louisville beating Syracuse. Yuck.

I grew up in Cincinnati and watched -- up close and personal -- the great rivalry between the Cincinnati Bearcats (still home to Oscar Robertson) and Xavier Musketeers. Within an hour drive there are the following college programs: Kentucky, Indiana, Louisville and Ohio State.

From December through March, I lived, breathed and ate college basketball with the rest of a country that followed the sport with more passion than now.

College basketball was just as big in Philadelphia. Temple, La Salle, Penn, St. Joseph’s and, of course, Villanova. It was this intensity in one of the great sports towns that drew me to Villanova. Yes, college basketball was the tipping point for me deciding to go to school where I went.

Now? The country doesn’t want to make or take the time to sit down and watch most of it for three or four months because there are so many other options at our disposal. A lot of fans have been turned off by the power-hungry coaches like Rick Pitino and John Calipari in power conferences, married to recruiting feeder programs like Nike and Adidas. Two of the last three coaches to lead Kentucky to national championships: Pitino and Calipari. I'll just let that sink in for a second. 

We should pay attention more than just two or three weeks a year to a sport that has so much tradition and societal impact. It was the shocking upset of Adolph Rupp's Kentucky Wildcats by the all-black starting lineup of Texas Western in the 1966 final that was nearly as significant as Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier. College basketball in the 1960s with UCLA and Kentucky, and in the 1970s with Indiana and Louisville, became as big as baseball and football. It was right there. Not anymore. 

That’s not to say there aren’t great heartwarming stories and teams in the tournament every season. Of course there are.

There are schools like Gonzaga, Davidson, Belmont, Bucknell. All are pure basketball schools with varying aspirations and hopes of making it to Atlanta for the Final Four in two weeks.

There was Butler reaching the Final Four and title game in consecutive seasons in 2010 and ’11. The Bulldogs only lost the 2010 title game to Duke when a desperation shot just missed going off the backboard and in. They beat another Cinderella in VCU on the way to losing to UConn in 2011. 

And there’s another reason to like the tournament -- it certainly is accessible to the fan on TV. The NCAA made the smart move of splitting its product over CBS along with Turner’s TNT, TBS and TruTV. It’s certainly the only time all year I watch TruTV, the channel hidden in my cable system. 

The first day this year? St. Mary’s nearly pulled off a miracle comeback against Memphis, making up six points in 20 seconds. Then less than an hour later, Marquette hit three 3-pointers in the final 90 seconds before Vander Blue capped off an improbable comeback against Davidson with a game-winning layup with one second left.

I guess that’s all we needed here in New England to start paying attention to college basketball again.

With Villanova playing North Carolina -- which Nova beat in the Southeast final in 1985 -- in the opening round, I guess I’ll get excited for the madness.

Who knows when another great story is about to happen?

Now to the Trags Bag for a sample of predictions from the masses:

From Twitter:

@Pango522 Obviously Villanova is going to be the surprise team in this tournament. Heart= Nova, Lou, Zaga, Indiana, Head has Gtown in

@ptgbalazs Currently all picks are working out in the bracket that has Miami winning it all. Two other brackets (29%, 79%) have Louisville

@dan8477 Syracuse, Florida, Gonzaga & Louisville. Syracuse to win. Why? To troll the UConn fans. #FinalFour

@keith_D02919 Louisville, Ohio St, Indiana and Georgetown. Georgetown over Louisville in national championship game #MarchMadness

From Facebook:

Robert Hyldburg Jr: Miami, Florida, Wisconsin, St. Louis.