Call me crazy, but I truly believe the opening days of the NCAA basketball tournament should be considered a national holiday in this country. 

Let’s be perfectly honest – who in their right mind wants to do any work when you’ve got a bonanza of thrilling college basketball contests that encapsulates the heart and soul? 

Walk into any American office space last week and you would’ve been greeted to browser windows streaming college basketball games on demand. Depending on the workplace, such a scene may or may not be a discrete operation on the part of an individual viewer. 

But the 2016 slate of opening tournament weekend games seemed to capture our attention a little more than in years past. 

Save for some of the obvious results (Kansas pounding Austin Peay, Oregon dispatching Holy Cross), nearly every game was competitive in some way. 

While it was somewhat surprising, it also didn’t come across as unexpected. Parity in the game of college basketball continues to be a prevalent theme. 

The rise of the powerful mid-major programs, such as Gonzaga and Virginia Commonwealth, have ushered a rather refreshing shift in the sport. 

Now, that’s not to say programs such as Kansas, North Carolina and Villanova don’t dominate the landscape in the latter rounds of the tournament. 

But when you see a Stephen F. Austin Lumberjack squad shock a West Virginia, it makes you take a step back and think a little. 

Or in the case of the Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders’ stunning upset of favorite Michigan State, it makes you want to rip your carefully researched bracket into teeny, tiny shreds. 

In case you’re wondering: Yes, I had Michigan State winning it all in two of my three brackets. And no, I didn’t burn my bracket after that game and bury the ashes in the ground. But I sure did think about it. 

It’s that raw, unfiltered emotion that makes the tournament such an appealing draw. 

One must admire the emotion spent by the athletes, win or lose, after a close game. 

It filters to the legions of rabid fans who are there right beside their favorite team. 

And while the tournament has its share of heartbreaking and soul-crushing moments, it’s all fun nonetheless. 

Even when your rooting interest becomes the victim of a completely lucky half-court shot that miraculously banks off of the backboard and into the hoop as the buzzer sounds. 

Seriously though, Northern Iowa’s Paul Jesperson probably misses that shot 9 out of 10 times he tries. Just so happened he hit number 10 against Texas last week. 

Nope, not bitter. Not one bit.  

Then again, Northern Iowa nine times out of ten probably doesn’t squander a historic 12-point lead in the final 35 seconds of regulation to Texas A&M. 

So goes the nature of the beast, the karmic balance the tournament. Props to the Aggies, however, for not giving up when it seemed their season was over. 

As we wind our way to the final four, let’s all take a moment to reflect on how amazing the first weekend of the tournament is. 

And if anyone is petitioning the federal government for a “March Madness weekend,” sign me up.