looking—LIVE!!!!!!—at Charlotte Bobcats Arena, site of this year’s ACC tournament. I’m here in the media room, which won’t start filling up for a few hours. Games don’t begin until tomorrow, but teams have their shootarounds here today. Just a few of us diligent hacks are here right now, including Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post and Pat Stevens of the Washington Times.

Fear not, gang, colleagues Jeff “Media Gadfly” White and Bob Lipper will be joining me here tomorrow and may contribute some thoughts in this space to counterbalance the steady stream of tripe I will be pumping onto this blog over the next few days.

Plenty of storylines to address over the next few days: How many wins does Virginia Tech need to make the NCAA tournament? Can Maryland make the run it needs to salvage its hopes for an NCAA bid, which seem to be fading fast? (Stevens says the Turtles need to at least make the final.) Can North Carolina win its second consecutive tournament, further cementing Tyler Hansbrough as the human version of The White Stripes’ “A Martyr For My Love For You“? That is to say—the unquestionable best offering from a group at the pinnacle of its profession.

But we ought to start at the beginning, because March Madness really heats up this week—with all due respect, of course, to the Newport News Apprentice School’s third-place finish at the USCAA Nationals. My trip down here began last night by pulling out of Blacksburg in my Corolla and putting my iPod on shuffle mode. I almost drove off the road when the first song came on: One Shining Moment—the old version.

So I suppose there is no better way to kick off the ACC tournament (and our accompanying blog) than by giving you a look at The Best Song In Sports ...