March Madness is over. Now, let’s all take a shower.

The best thing about this year’s Final Four? They’ve made it easy not to stay up late and watch it. In fact, you could get your sleep and feel downright righteous. Like a vegan on a pleather couch.

Really, how do you watch big-time college sports and not feel a little bit complicit? Michigan can now claim that it produced the best basketball team in all of the land based on a game won by players who have combined to log more course credits elsewhere. Of the eight players who appeared in the Wolverines 69-63 win over Connecticut in Monday’s Division I national basketball championship, only two had been on campus since their freshman year. One of those two played a whopping six minutes. The other was an actual freshman. The rest were transfers, including all five starters, four of whom arrived at the school within the last year.

It’s fitting that Michigan beat a school whose second-leading scorer had spent more seasons at Michigan than most current Wolverines. Tarris Reed will leave UConn without a ring, despite spending all four years of his athletic eligibility at two schools who have combined to win three of the last four championships. If that sounds confusing, don’t bother making sense of it. Just know that it’s true.

» READ MORE: Michigan powers to its second national title and first since 1989, beating UConn 69-63

The clocks are striking 13 and we are all pretending it’s noon. The NCAA and their network partners can market their product as “college sports” for however long you will continue to buy it. When the clocks are striking 13 and everyone keeps pretending it is noon, it doesn’t take long for the time to become whatever they say it is.

This doesn’t need to be an ethical choice. I didn’t conscientiously abstain from watching this year’s tournament. I tuned in whenever I was interested, which wasn’t very often.

It’s hard to argue whether the basketball itself has declined. Michigan just won a championship game in which it shot 30.9% from the field. That’s the second-lowest mark by a winner of a Final Four game in the three-point era. Then again, UConn has a habit of being present in games like this, regardless of the Era. Back in 2011, the Huskies themselves cut down the nets after shooting 34.5% from the field.

Nobody can deny that Michigan was an impressive team to watch. Several advanced analytic models rate them as one of the top two or three college basketball teams of all time. My eyes told me that when I watched them decimate Villanova early in the season. I would have loved to see them square off against last year’s Duke team, which also has an argument as the best ever assembled.

And therein lies the point. We won’t get to see that. We don’t get to see it. College hoops isn’t like that anymore. The maddening thing is that everybody seems to wish it was. Coaches, administrators, broadcasters, all of them openly acknowledge that they have lost a big part of what made March’s madness. The narratives, the backstories, the collegiateness of it all.

This year’s Final Four teams combined to field seven of 20 starters who had been at their schools for more than one season. Of those seven, only four had been their since they were freshmen. Four years ago, 17 of 20 Final Four starters had been at their schools multiple seasons. The vast majority of them were homegrown.

Familiarity and continuity aren’t just things that coaches are missing with their teams. We are missing them as spectators. Once upon a time, we watched Doug and Greg McDermott in the Sweet 16 because we’d watched them the previous season. And then we watched them again the next season.

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We watched Jimmer Fredette and BYU go from the Round of 64 to the Round of 32 to the Sweet 16 over four years. We watched Tyler Hansbrough finally win a title as a senior after getting one step closer each year. We watched Devonte’ Graham and Kansas get to the Final Four after two straight Elite Eight losses. Kemba Walker and UConn won a title two years after we first saw them in a Final Four.

Buddy Hield and Oklahoma.

Frank Kaminsky, Sam Dekker and Wisconsin.

Shelvin Mack, Gordon Hayward and Butler.

March was always bigger than the Cinderellas. The stories sparked your interest.

Tennessee has been to three straight Elite Eights without any player who has played in all three. This year’s team had one returning starter from last year.

Does it matter? I’m interested in the answer. The consumer votes with dollars and attention span.

One data point I’ll latch onto in order to confirm my priors: Four years ago, 13.6 million people tuned in to watch tournament darling Saint Peter’s continue its Cinderella run against North Carolina in the Elite Eight. The viewership for this year’s Duke-UConn classic, per SportsMediaWatch: 13.4 million. Same day, same time, same channel, same stakes.

This isn’t about Saint Peter’s. The NCAA is largely right in its pooh-poohing of small-school Cinderellas in the favor of expanding the field. The problem isn’t the marginalization of potential Butlers or George Masons or VCUs. The problem with the tournament is that the big schools are boring.

Look at the North Carolina team that beat Saint Peter’s and advanced to the championship game. Those Tar Heels were a classic March Madness team, just like Hansbrough’s and Eric Montross’. By the time they reached the national title game, four of their five starters had been together for multiple seasons, all since their freshman years. UNC ended up losing in the title game to Kansas, whose starting five had spent a combined 14 years at the school. The previous game, the Jayhawks beat a Villanova team with four starters who had been there at least three seasons.

Back then, you could at least pretend to believe in the significance of the school on the front of the jersey. Take that away, and what’s the point of watching? There’s a reason they don’t schedule minor league games in prime time.