LAS VEGAS – The line at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Sportsbook kept expanding last weekend, the members of the line eagerly exchanging their hard-earned Benjamins and Jeffersons for small, white betting slips.

In Las Vegas, it was 9:30 a.m., but don’t try telling the bartenders or scantily clad cocktail waitresses. The beers flowed as four overgrown television monitors blared the first quartet of first round NCAA Tournament games. Three-pointers by Wisconsin-Milwaukee – a school surely few of the rooters could identify on a U.S. map – were met with wild cheers not one half into the game.

‘This is great,’ one patron remarked, tipping back a bottle of Corona. ‘In the rest of the country, banks and hospitals are fully operational. We’re sitting here drinking beer and watching basketball.’

Such is the surreal state of our sporting country for the third weekend in March and the two weekends to follow, when we break for basketball. Or, more accurately, gambling on basketball.

You’ve probably spent more time studying a bracket than textbooks. Studies have shown office production takes a nosedive during the NCAA Tournament. Billions of dollars have been wagered illegally on bracket pools, and that’s not even counting Washington football coaches.

That’s really the charm of the NCAA Tournament, isn’t it? Sure, we like the great players and the great teams and great matchups and all that. The competition grows more and more intense thanks to the one-and-done nature, and the Cinderella stories make for great drama (ask Vermont) or tragedy (hello, Syracuse!).

But that doesn’t explain why a pack of 50 grown men stirred nervously in front of a comically large television screen outside the Bellagio Casino Sportsbook last Friday at the conclusion North Carolina’s opening round game against Oakland.

The Tar Heels led by 28 with less than five seconds left, and more scrubs than a hospital could house littered the court. The game was over for most. For the hollering men in front of the screen, it had reached its apex.

The little white betting slips in their hands read, ‘NORTH CAROLINA -27,’ and some faceless reserve from Oakland drove to the hoop, destined to spoil their payday. He shot an uncontested lay-up, and groans of, ‘Nooo!!!’ spread through the entire casino.

The ball rolled in. Around. And out.

Exaltation. Elation. Total strangers high-fived and hugged. Yelps of joy flooded the place.

The screen switched quickly to another game, the announcers basically at a hush.

It was 2 in the afternoon, when reality dictates people are at, you know, work.

But that’s the magic of the NCAA Tournament – it’s a suspension of reality reliant on the oh-so-lovely melding of college hoops and gambling, the greatest combination since hydrogen and oxygen.

The captivating thing isn’t judging the players, it’s judging ourselves, our ability to pick the winners. That’s why the first round – not the round for the best matchups – holds our interest most. Every game matters so much, a single litmus test of our own knowledge. And if some easy money might come with it, so much the better.

The tournament isn’t so much about Winsome (Frazier), it’s about Winning Some (Paper).

The rampant wagering turns from anticipation to gratifying commiseration after the first weekend. ‘So, how’s your bracket?’ becomes the perfect conversational piece. And no one wants to hear, ‘Great, how about you!’ It’s a question that begs for solace, to find another poor soul whose bracket now rests in tatters.

So, how’s my bracket? Never filled one out – I was on a plane to Vegas when the bracket came out, and had no Internet access while I stayed there for Spring Break.

The tournament wasn’t the same without one. No circling my winners, no angrily crossing out the losers. The Cinderellas thrilled me a little less, my heart pounded less frequently at the buzzer.

Well, except in the first Gonzaga game. I had Winthrop and the points.