Forget December: March is the most wonderful time of the year.

Spring has sprung, birds are chirping and it hit 80 degrees in Athens, Georgia.

Plus, it’s time for the annual event where my bracket gets shot to pieces and I lose all but two of my Sweet 16 picks by the “third” round — or whatever they call the old “second” round these days. And by event, I mean the NCAA Tournament. The Big Dance. March Madness. Did I hit all the proper SEO terms? Good.

Before I release my bracket — or as I call it: a good example of what everybody should avoid — allow me to wax poetic about March.

This month has always been great to me from a professional standpoint.

Two years ago, I went to Las Vegas and covered the Texas State Bobcats in the Western Athletic Conference Tournament. While you all may look at it as a a free trip to Sin City, I saw it as another huge vouch of confidence from my employer in my ability to cover a beat. Before that, I was fortunate enough to attend all of the football team’s road games that season (its first as a member of the Football Bowl Subdivision) and Texas State went all over the United States from Houston, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico to San Jose, California to Logan, Utah to Annapolis, Maryland and then to San Antonio.

Anyway, let me cut to the chase about what made March of 2012 great. I wrote a game story about Texas State’s upset of Denver in the tournament quarterfinals and eventually earned my first major award thanks to that piece.

Fast forward to last year and things completely changed. No longer did I have ‘Daily Record Sports’ under my byline, but ‘Sports Editor.’ That didn’t keep me from covering most of the basketball games with a new head coach roaming the sidelines (Danny Kaspar). At the end of the season, I sat down with Kaspar and wrote what I felt was one of my best columns (only if it could have been entered in the awards).

Around that time, I also started to put the plan in motion to move on from San Marcos and that’s when I first got in contact with the Athens Banner-Herald.

So far this month, things have gone incredibly well. I’ll just leave these here…

You still want picks or something? Fine. Here we go.

Midwest Region

Second Round Winners: Kentucky, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Maryland, Butler, Notre Dame, Wichita State, Kansas.

To the Sweet 16: Kentucky, Maryland, Notre Dame, Wichita State.

To the Elite Eight: Kentucky, Notre Dame.

To the Final Four: Kentucky.

West Region

Second Round Winners: Wisconsin, Oregon, Arkansas, North Carolina, BYU, Baylor, Ohio State, Arizona.

To the Sweet 16: Wisconsin, North Carolina, BYU, Arizona.

To the Elite Eight: Wisconsin, Arizona.

To the Final Four: Arizona.

East Region

Second Round Winners: Villanova, NC State, Northern Iowa, Louisville, Dayton, Oklahoma, Michigan State, Virginia.

To the Sweet 16: Villanova, Northern Iowa, Oklahoma, Virginia.

To the Elite Eight: Villanova, Virginia.

To the Final Four: Villanova.

South Region

Second Round Winners: Duke, San Diego State, Utah, Georgetown, SMU, Iowa State, Iowa, Gonzaga.

To The Sweet 16: Duke, Utah, SMU, Gonzaga.

To the Elite Eight: Duke, Gonzaga.

To the Final Four: Duke.

Final Four

Game 1: Kentucky over Arizona.

Game 2: Duke over Villanova.

National Championship

Kentucky over Duke.

Final Thoughts

As much as I hate Duke (I’m a North Carolina fan and have been from the days of Vince Carter and Jerry Stackhouse), they’re incredibly balanced and have Jahlil Okafor. Then there’s Kentucky. I saw the Wildcats live and they’re on another level. Just go ahead and give them the trophy now.