When you're a sports writer, there are a lot of things to look forward to every year. It's a cyclical thing.

For me, in my 28th year of covering high school sports, one of those annual pleasures is the excitement being generated this week at three locations: Rio Rancho High School, Santa Ana Star Center and The Pit.

Of course, I'm talking about the state high school basketball tournament, which attracted more than 140,000 fans last year, a record. Obviously, I'm anticipating the Class 5A state championship game - expecting and hoping the Rio Rancho Rams will be there, probably facing the Hobbs Eagles.

This season has been paralleling a season I witnessed before, 22 years ago, when I was the sports editor at the Valencia County News-Bulletin.

Like the Rams, the Belen Eagles had been a basketball doormat, namely because they were in District 5AAA, where perennial cage powers Albuquerque Academy, St. Pius X, Bernalillo and even Grants went to the state tournament year after year and the Eagles stayed home.

Although my state tournament notes and brackets don't go back that far - I can tell you game-by-game who won since 1988, though - I remember the Rams got all the way to the Class AAA championship game against St. Pius. In one of my old bylined stories that appeared in an Albuquerque newspaper at the time, I noticed Belen beat Shiprock in a pre-playoff (remember those days?), then West Las Vegas in a quarterfinal game at the long-gone Civic Auditorium. Belen then beat Hot Springs in the semis.

LIke I'll be if the Rams go all the way, I was courtside for the Rams-Sartans contest. I was not only covering the game for the News-Bulletin, I was working on the radio broadcast for KARS Radio, which kept me on board as its sports director for three stints "back in the day."

The Sartans beat the Eagles 56-45, and Belen hasn't returned to the title tilt since.

In another analogy to this year's Rams team, once I looked through some of my old files, I saw that 20 years ago, Belen was ranked No. 1 for the first time in school history, even though it'd been two seasons since the Eagles played for that AAA title.

By now, and obviously not knowing the result of Wednesday's quarterfinal game between the Rams and Sandia Matadors, I hope you've had the opportunity to see the Rams play. All season, I've heard fans and my fellow sports writers ask, "Are the Rams for real?"

Yes, I'd tell them. They've got all the tools: an inside game, an outside game, rebounding, depth and a tremendous defense.

Despite the song lyrics proclaiming Christmas as "the most wonderful time of the year," I'd put the state basketball tournament up there to rival that.

And, just as I watch an old movie ("National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" or "Lethal Weapon") to get ready for Christmas, I annually watch "Hoosiers" before I head to a state tournament venue.

I think that although Rio Rancho is more of the exact opposite of "Hickory High" in that movie, being that Hickory only had 51 seniors in its graduating class, Rams coach Brian Smith has done the same things Hickory coach "Norman Dale," portrayed by Gene Hackman, did to get his team through the season and to state: teamwork, tough D, and relying on the fundamentals.

Only Smith hasn't received any technical fouls this season; Hackman seemed to get one every game in the movie.