Like baseball fans who spend the winter chanting their mantra ---
"pitchers and catchers" --- in anticipation of the first day of
spring training, college basketball enthusiasts count down the days
until March Madness, the tournament to crown the NCAA basketball
champions.

The sporting event has become one of the biggest in the country,
aided by increased media attention that now includes coverage of
all the games, not just those among the teams fighting to be
involved in the final face-off.

John Feinstein captures all the tumult in his typically
illuminating fashion in LAST DANCE: Behind the Scenes at the Final
Four. As in his other books, which encompass baseball, football,
basketball, golf and tennis, he focuses on the buildup of the
excitement leading up to the championship game rather than dwell on
the athletic accomplishments of individual participants.

Feinstein has the ability to entice even those who don't consider
themselves sports fans. He makes his subjects human, making them
accessible to the level of the average person, while at the same
time telling us what makes them remarkable. For example, this
anecdote about legendary UCLA coach John Wooden:

"The lobby was still crowded and, as often happens when Wooden
crosses a room or a lobby, people stopped what they were doing to
watch the great man. At that moment, what they saw was
heartbreaking: Wooden pushing his wife's wheelchair, everyone
knowing that her time was short.

"To this day, no one is certain how it began, but someone started
to clap. Then others did the same thing. By the time the Woodens
had reached the elevators, everyone in the lobby was turned in
their direction, clapping. It was one of those unrehearsed moments
that become remarkable ones."

LAST DANCE is full of such moments, whether it's about coaches and
the difficulties of building a winning program or athletes
overcoming a range of problems from poverty to violence to academic
disadvantages.

College basketball has changed over the years. There was more of a
sense of camaraderie in the early days of the tournament. Players
and coaches used to mill around the hotel lobby, swapping stories
and talking strategy. Now, with hundreds of reporters and
broadcasters constantly swimming the waters in search of stories,
such innocence is long gone.

Like all high-profile events, the NCAA championships would not be
possible without all those spear carriers in the background.
Another characteristic of Feinstein's work is to give such
supporting casts their due. Referees, college sports information
directors (SIDs), boosters, selection committee members ("The
committee chairman…is frequently referred to by those
interviewing him as "Mr. Chairman," as if he were a member of
Congress, not simply someone leading a group charged with picking
teams for a basketball tournament."), even the ticket scalpers ---
their behind-the-scenes work factors into the success or failure of
the colleges' seasons, or the fans' ability to enjoy the
spectacle.

Feinstein is most candid when he writes about the desirability (or
lack thereof) of the selection of certain schools in the
tournament, at least from the point of view of the television
decision-makers. While most fans love a Cinderella story, TV is
more interested in ratings that high-profile or large-market teams
like Duke, North Carolina, Indiana, Syracuse, and Georgetown might
bring than some tiny school in Iowa that got lucky.

Fans of college hoops, whether rabid or peripheral, will find LAST
DANCE educational, entertaining, and a good way to keep in touch
while waiting for the games to begin.