UNC coach Roy Williams has all summer to savor his first NCAA championship. Elsa/Getty Images

This is catharsis for life without college basketball. Play back the dance in your head, beginning from the end. Arch Madness. Sean May. And everyone else in his wake. End-of-March Madness. The Miracle at Rosemont, the 20-point erasure at The Pit, the two overtimes in Austin. The Opening Days. McNaughton. Mopa Njila.

To unwind from the NCAA tournament, I have to put it on rewind. The most vivid images have already been well-documented, so here I play back everything that was unfit to print in the original text, backtracking three weeks of hoops from St. Louis, to Syracuse to Worcester. Call it a diary, call it early withdrawal therapy. It has very little to do with the games themselves.

St. Louis

Tues., April 5: Fate (actually, a coinciding airline departure) connects me with North Carolina for one last time. Parading down the sidewalk outside the main terminal at STL are the Tar Heels, on their way to RDU, then Chapel Hill and, presumably, the greatest welcome-home party of their lives.

Roy Williams leads the way, clad not in golf clothes (earlier in the week he said he planned to be "on the first tee Tuesday morning"), but rather one of his coaching suits. His players are equally GQ, aside from their standard-issue, Nike championship hats. May, as he often appears in the pregame layup line, is wearing iPod headphones in his ears, but the congratulations from well-wishers -- an airport seemingly half-filled with Carolina blue-bloods -- is undoubtedly audible over the music.

Once at the proper terminal, Roy opts for a shoe shine, signing autographs while his kicks are buffed.

Best look good for the flight home, coach. Because this trip back to Carolina will be much, much sweeter than your first one.

Tues., April 5: UNC and Roy have their national championship, and I've had no sleep. It is the last trip -- the March away from the Arch -- en route to the St. Louis airport from the media hotel on Tuesday morning. The driver, a serious-looking veteran of the transport profession, says, "A Illini fan jumped off the bridge."

Now, sir. What is the meaning of this? Is this the kind of sick humor locals dish out as a parting gift from the 27th city? Frightening visitors with tales of suicidal leaps?

"He jumped off the Martin Luther King Bridge this morning," the man at the wheel says again, almost too nonchalantly. "They still haven't found him. The Mississippi this time of year -- it can swallow things."

This does not seem real. I will look this up once I return to New York. (And, for the record, find no evidence that it happened.)