The year was 1954. I occasionally like to flatter myself by saying I was aware that Indiana had won the 1953 NCAA Tournament, but it was far more likely knowledge I would acquire later. I heard about it in 1954 because the new champion was La Salle and my father, Bill Ryan, was the assistant director of athletics at rival Villanova. In addition, one of my neighbors was a La Salle undergraduate. The triumph of the great Tom Gola and friends was a neighborhood story. And Philadelphia was roughly 40 miles away from my Trenton, N.J., residence.

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Speaking of Gola, any list of the best college players of all time must include his name.

I really was into college basketball. I like to say that what I call my “foundation sports” were baseball and college basketball. My dad had introduced me to the famed Pennsylvania Palestra when I was 6. One of my most vivid childhood memories took place the night of Jan. 8, 1954 — Elvis’s 19th birthday, but who knew? — when I was in the row behind the Villanova bench as the Wildcats’ Bob Schafer scored 46 points against Baldwin-Wallace — the late, great Bud Collins’s alma mater, but who knew? — to break the Palestra scoring record held by teammate Larry Hennessy.

So the tournament was into my head, and it has never left. It was a tough love for the simple reason that unless you were front and center at a venue you could only read about it. Your first real connection might not happen until you were filled in by the next season’s preview publications. But there was a certain romanticism about it that fired my youthful imagination, and you can bet that when TV opportunities came around in the early ’60s, I was parked in front of my set.

Before those chances came about, however, you can also bet I was aware of key tournament happenings. I knew about the two Bill Russell/San Francisco titles in 1955 and ’56; the epic North Carolina triple-overtime triumph over Wilt Chamberlain and Kansas in ’57; Adolph Rupp’s Kentucky “Fiddlin’ Five” knocking off Elgin Baylor and Seattle in ’58; Darrall Imhoff’s game-winning tip-in getting Cal past Jerry West and West Virginia in ’59; Ohio State’s rout of that same Cal team in ’60; and Cincinnati’s back-to-back conquests of Ohio State in ’61 and ’62. None were available to us as live events.

That changed forever in 1963. That’s when Eddie Einhorn’s fledgling TVS network gave us the title game between two-time defending champ Cincinnati and upstart Loyola of Chicago, whose coach, George Ireland, had the guts to start an unheard-of four Black players. Imagine that!

I was so excited to see it that I think I watched the whole game while standing up.

Cincinnati had a 45-30 lead when coach Ed Jucker entered into a milk-the-clock mode. Bad idea. The Ramblers came creeping back to force overtime at 54-54. With two minutes left in OT and the teams tied again, 58-58, Ireland went to his own stall (no shot clock, remember) and was rewarded when a Vic Rouse putback gave Loyola a 60-58 win. And I watched it!

The late Jerry Harkness was a star on the 1963 Loyola Chicago title team that Bob Ryan watched win on the TVS network.Paul Cannon/Associated Press

That was five years before my first in-person NCAA experience. I was the student radio broadcaster in 1967 when Boston College beat UConn and St. John’s to set up a quarterfinal against North Carolina. The Tar Heels ran us out in the second half and Dean Smith went to his first Final Four.

Three years later, I was in College Park, Md., for this newspaper covering my first Final Four. It was yet another UCLA triumph, with Sidney Wicks outplaying Jacksonville’s Artis Gilmore in the championship game.

The NCAA Tournament has subsequently given me some of my greatest career memories, among them Villanova’s stunning conquest of mighty Georgetown in 1985 and the unparalleled greatness of the 104-103 Duke victory over Kentucky (yes, the Christian Laettner game) in overtime in 1992.

The Villanova-Georgetown game stands apart as the Wildcats shot 22 for 28 from the floor (9 for 10 in the second half) in the last college game played without a shot clock. Georgetown had entered the game with an invincible aura. Villanova had entered the tournament with 10 losses.

Duke-Kentucky was an entirely different matter. This was a heavyweight slugfest, played at the highest artistic level. It will forever be remembered for its ending, but even without the dramatic winning basket this remains the best college game I’ve ever seen.

Now we have the Braylon Mullins shot in last Sunday’s 73-72 win over Duke in the Elite Eight for the archives. His game-winner gave the Huskies their only lead since 2-0. They had trailed by 19. Sports can provide monumental thrills with very different scripts.

OK, I’ll get to it. We now live in a time when many lifelong fans of big-time college sports are checking out because of the radically different circumstance in which the teams are constructed and governed. The NIL money and transfer portal have permanently altered the landscape. Academics? Ha! Loyalty? What’s that? We are being forced to make a moral judgment in order to give our support to the entire enterprise.

I’m not going to preach — not today. I’ll just say that I can put the sausage factory aspect of the whole thing aside once they throw the ball up. If you can’t do that, well, I understand.

We’ve had some fantastic games in this year’s tournament. Call me an enabler, but to me this is the tournament I’ve always known, and I’ve known a few.

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Bob Ryan can be reached at robert.ryan@globe.com.