Thursday, March 16, 2006 | 6:51 a.m.
The NCAA Tournament gets under way today, as 64 men's college basketball teams vie to see which is this country's best. With each passing year, the public's interest in the tournament grows. For that matter, a good case could be made that it is becoming a national obsession - if not already. Arguably, next to the Super Bowl, it is the second biggest sporting event of the year.
NCAA officials don't want to hear it, but a big reason why the tournament has become so successful is because of betting - principally the office pools where co-workers wager on the tournament's outcome. While UNLV hasn't been in the NCAA Tournament since 2000, it goes without saying that this is a huge event for Las Vegas, where sports betting is legal.
What also makes the tournament so riveting from even a casual fan's perspective is that every year there are one or two Cinderella teams that somehow find a way to knock off a top-rated team in one of the earlier rounds of play. Call it the "Hoosiers" effect, the movie made two decades ago and based on a true story, where a high school team from a small town goes on to win Indiana's championship against that state's big-city teams.
While UNLV won't field a team in the tournament, there will be a strong team from Nevada - UNR, which lays claim to a large contingent of alumni from Las Vegas - that will make the tournament even that more interesting for all of us who live here.
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