Stunned? That’s one way to describe my emotions this week.

Saddened? Absolutely.

Angry? No. I understand the bigger issues at stake, but I’ve been in a bit of a fog watching one league or event after another postpone or cancel.

March is my favorite month, the one I look forward to the longest, plan around the most. As packed ballparks and basketball arenas prove, I’m hardly alone in that sentiment. I’ve made career choices based on how much fun I have in March. It combines everything I love: warm weather, basketball, baseball and tennis.

I grew up in Raleigh, where basketball is a year-round obsession, but every tentacle of your life is touched by what happens in March. Football provides bragging rights to SEC fans, but where I’m from, it’s basketball. And there is no close second. Sure, spring football started in March, but I never noticed. If you’re reading this in Lexington, you understand. In the Triangle, we remember and relive Stackhouse’s dunk at Duke or Gene Banks’ buzzer-beater against UNC, reminiscing about and romanticizing the moments the way Auburn fans mention Bo over the top or Kick-6.

We might forget the occasional birthday, but, like Alabama football fans, we recite ACC and NCAA championship years with precision and speed. Even more fun, we greet friends of rivals with reminders of their worst March moments, giving them nicknames like “Mercer” or “Lehigh.” They know why.

Selection Sunday, today, is a regional holiday, just like in Lexington. Filling out the bracket is a family tradition. Winning the bracket? That’s more fun than receiving a healthy tax refund. Sadly, there will be no Big Brother Bracket of Love this year.

March also means baseball, and baseball brought us to Florida. My wife and I moved to Clearwater in 1997, months after visiting for Phillies spring training. It was her birthday trip and we were hooked on the area 5 minutes after walking in to Al Lang Stadium. The only thing better than spring training baseball is Opening Day and the postseason, though she’ll say nothing is better than sitting in the warm but not broiling sun, sparkling blue skies above, beer in hand, watching spring training.

When I worked at the Miami Herald, March was absolute nirvana. Spring training, March Madness and the Lipton, the “5th tennis major” that has since changed names and locales. All in a compact 31-day window.

Every day was Christmas. We did baseball-tennis doubleheaders, catching the Orioles in Fort Lauderdale and the night session in Key Biscayne. For a month, South Florida was home to the biggest stars of every sport. I watched Rafa’s “hello, world” moment, under the lights, when the unseeded 17-year-old stunned Federer in their first meeting in 2004. I’ve been his biggest fan ever since. Vamos.

March made the 7 years — and 7 brutal winters — we spent in Indianapolis tolerable. Heck, the only reason we moved there was the job was too good to reject: Managing coverage of college basketball and the NBA. Managing March. Indy was part of the NCAA Tournament’s rotation, hosting 2 Final Fours while I was there, including Butler’s historic journey to the 2010 national championship game.

March gave us a reason to persevere, to plow through January and February.

We moved back to Clearwater in 2011, and every year since I wondered why we left. Days off in March are spent at the ballpark. Tickets are bought in December and January, as soon as they become available. Family and friends visit. We provide clean linens. March provides the entertainment. This spring, I’ve already attended 4 games in 3 stadiums. Friends from opposite ends of the state drove in and met us as Legends Field for one. We have tickets for another, next Monday, as a family to celebrate the wife’s birthday. Alas, they will go unused. Sure, dinner will be nice, but it won’t be the same.

Nothing about this month will be the same.

The gyms and stadiums are eerily silent. I miss the deafening noise already. The anticipation of Selection Sunday — who’s in, who’s out, who’s going where, who’s meeting who, and when — has been shelved.

Tampa is hosting — rather, was hosting, sorry, the new reality is still raw — the first 2 rounds of the NCAA Tournament. I went to the Final Four here in 1999. The NCAA has made only occasional trips back since. It didn’t matter which teams were coming next week or the fact there was zero chance our team would be invited. The kids and I were going.

There were tentative plans to attend Opening Day in Miami, where Bryce Harper no doubt would have launched 2 into the upper deck to lead the Phillies to a big win. Watching Rafa at the Miami Open the next day was merely a convenient bonus, a double-header from a decade earlier, another reason to reflect on the first time I saw that forehand, that fist pump.

March memories last forever.

For my family, and probably yours, too, March is get out and go time.

And now it’s gone away.

I’m not quite sure what to do.