It’s the most wonderful time of the year, especially if you’re a college basketball fan.

March Madness is well upon us, now down to the four “best” teams the country has to offer with only three games remaining to crown the national champion. Kansas, Ohio State, Kentucky or Louisville will leave New Orleans with claims as the nation’s best.

Though there is no true Cinderella story this season, the road to the Final Four was surely packed with surprises, as it is nearly every year.

Syracuse started it off right, nearly making my wildest dreams come true (seeing a No. 1 seed lose in the first round) when the Orange – down superstar center Fab Malo to academic ineligibility – nearly choked against 16-seed University of North Carolina at Ashville. Alas, I must wait another year to see such a historic victory.

The following afternoon, No. 2 Missouri (this writer’s Final Four pick) and senior guard Kim English elected not to show up to their game against Norfolk State, making the Spartans only the fifth 15-seed to upset a second-seed since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

So as I wipe my tears with my sham of a bracket, trying to figure out why I would ever choose Missouri (a team that Associated Press and USA Today named the third-best in the nation) to defeat a team like Norfolk State, something unforeseen occurred.

It happened again.

In what can only be considered the basketball gods’ way of evening the playing field, Duke somehow took a play from Missouri’s playbook and fell to Lehigh, also a 15-seed.

As a sports fan, I could only imagine the elation and pride felt with these wins, with David slaying Goliath, proving that one’s underdog team could be more than just a footnote to another team’s historic run.

Here enters Northeastern, a team that hasn’t been to the tournament in 21 years, and who hasn’t won a NCAA tournament game since Husky-great Reggie Lewis paced Northeastern to a 90-87 first-round win over Long Island University in 1984.

Our Huskies play in arguably one of the more demanding mid-major conferences in the country, the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA). Outside of the “Power Six” conferences (Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, ACC and Pac 12), the Mountain West Conference, the Atlantic 10 and the CAA are the best three basketball conferences out of 32 Division 1 conferences in the NCAA.

In many ways, playing so many talented teams hurts our postseason chances each year. A team can only win so many games against the likes of George Mason, Virginia Commonwealth, Drexel and Old Dominion, teams with proven tournament pedigree.

On the other hand, if Northeastern were to ever get back to the tournament, that exposure would come in handy against the best teams in the nation.

So-called “mid-major” schools have made a name for themselves over the past few seasons. George Mason made it to the Final Four as an 11th seed in 2006. Virginia Commonwealth did the exact same thing with the exact same seed last season.

Outside of Colonial, Butler made it to back-to-back national championship games in 2010 and 2011, helping to fuel the argument that “mid-major” is an outdated term, especially considering the success of so many basketball programs. Mid-major really just indicates second-best, but the reality of the matter is that any team, on any given day, can pull off the upset.

Any team also includes Northeastern. If the Huskies reached the tournament, chances are they would be given a low seed with experts giving them little chance of advancing simply because they don’t play in a Power Six conference.

But in reality, Northeastern would stand a fairly good chance against any team. To get in the tournament, Northeastern would have to have those marquee wins against the CAA powers, good performances against any top-25 teams they may face and impressive romps of teams they have to beat.

And could you imagine if they did win? It would be on the same level as Northeastern hockey winning the Beanpot, or even the Hockey East regular-season title. It would be little Northeastern, for the most part a hockey school, beating a basketball powerhouse on a national stage. There would be avid buzz about the team throughout campus, an insatiable delirium for all things Husky basketball and a yearning desire for a repeat performance in the following round.

And sooner or later, it will happen.

I won’t sit here and guarantee a Northeastern tournament victory any time soon. But it will happen. One day, the Huskies will get that marquee victory, most likely as a low-seeded team.

And when it does happen, I’ll see you all at the party in Centennial.

– Andy MacDougall can be reached at [email protected]