The NCAA Tournament has crowned its champion.  The sporting event that I so eagerly await has run its course.  Usually for me these 63 games represent the short year's highlight.  This year?  Meh. @JoeBianchino

In the spirit of openess, I must confess myself a bit bitter.  A 22-10 opening round had my bracket stumbling out of the gate and two rounds later it was lying dead somewhere in the back stretch.  So admittedly, my dissapointment may be clouding any small sense of journalistic integrity that had once existed.  But really, this tournament wasn't great.

In fact, in all honesty, the tournament's peak came on its second day, when a pair of 15 seeds took down their second seeded rivals.  And while those were marvelous, the tournament's intrigue hit zero just as those contest's game clocks did.

In my opinion, the greatness of the tournament, year after year, are the big shots, the buzzer beaters, the "Onions" moments.  But where was Billy Raftery's famous line this year?  Stolen from us by a dizzying display of poor shot selection, stupid mistakes and an absurd amount of lane violations that not only had me questioning the mental competencies of players and officials alike, but sent me sifting through the fine print of my rule book.

It always sucks when Vader's right, but let's be honest.  He is.  The great match ups we hoped for never really materialized - thanks to eligibility and injury issues - and those games that we did get hyped up for rarely lived up.  There were some good games and a few big moments, but for the most part - and especially when compared to years past - the drama of this tournament was minimal.  Go ahead and think back to its biggest moments.  Would you be surprised to find that they're lane violations, badly missed threes when a team needed only a two, or costly turnovers - or, If you're Notre Dame, all three.

Look, it's still the NCAA Tournament, it was still a fun ride, and a world's full of congratulations to Kentucky, but for me, this year's "One Shinning Moment" was a bit dulled.

More From 104.5 THE TEAM