Most everything about this edition of March Madness has made me miss my Dad, but Thursday night, with one minute remaining in overtime at the world’s most famous arena, I was reminded why, after all these years, I still am a believer in dreams.

That’s when Kansas State’s jitterbug jewel of a gift to college basketball, Markquis Nowell, appeared to yell at his head coach Jerome Tang, only for the whole thing to be a basketball Fumblerooski, a sleight of hand which relaxed the Michigan State defense long enough for Keyontae Johnson to cut along the baseline and throw down a reverse alley-oop that gave Kansas State the lead for good.

As Johnson threw down the dunk, I felt my heart leap and simultaneously bit my lip to fight back tears on my couch.

It’s been nearly 6 months since my Dad left this mortal earth, and until Thursday night, there had not been a day since he passed when life and the world of sports, and especially basketball, which  has offered me so many life lessons and father and son so much kinship and happy days, seemed in perfect symmetry.

To understand this symmetry, we have to go back 26 months, to another Johnson alley-oop, this time for the Florida Gators, Johnson’s original college team, at the Donald L Tucker Civic Center in Tallahassee, Florida. That thunderous dunk hushed the home fans of Florida State and forced a Leonard Hamilton timeout, as Florida built a big early lead on their in-state rival. As the timeout ended and the Gators walked back onto the floor, Johnson suddenly collapsed, falling face first to the ground.

Thursday night, with another alley-oop, Keyontae Johnson’s story came full circle, and as I instinctively jumped for joy, I also instinctively reached to text my Dad. As I put my phone down, remembering Dad wasn’t there, the tears almost came again, as they do for so many fans and players every March during this spectacular tournament, the greatest American sporting event ever invented.

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Twenty-six months ago, none of this seemed possible.

Johnson collapsed and was put into a medically-induced coma, and the only question on anyone’s mind was whether a promising life would end far too soon.

Johnson is a walking miracle.

On the day of the collapse, Dec. 12, 2020, a series of heroic acts and fortunate events combined to keep him alive.

Duke Werner, the longtime Florida basketball trainer, responded without shock or panic, initiating chest compressions immediately and continuing them until a fast-thinking Florida State trainer arrived on the court with a defibrillator, jump-starting Johnson’s heart. Moments later, a board-certified cardiologist who happened to have floor seats to the Florida-Florida State game bolted from her seat, found a security guard who let her on the floor, and began barking orders and assisting in rescue efforts.

“If it wasn’t for her, and for Duke, and the FSU staff, I would not have this second chance,” Johnson said last March in Gainesville, reflecting on the toughest day of his life. “There isn’t a day I don’t think about it.”

After the collapse, Johnson became a Gainesville fixture, the consummate teammate, a friend to all, an extra coach on the bench.

“He was another coach for us,” Colin Castleton, the 2022-23 SEC Defensive Player of the Year, remembered last spring. “A guy we listened to in practice or in a timeout. If we made a mistake, he picked us up. If he saw a tendency, like ‘Hey, this guy drives to his left every time,’ he’d tell us and he would be right. Smartest dude on the team. Our guy. Our leader. The best? He’d treat you the same, if you were a freshman manager or you were All-SEC.”

Johnson also became, to the delight of his parents, a Florida graduate.

“The best thing a child can do is serve others, be selfless, work hard. For (Keyontae) to graduate, after everything, was special,” his dad, Marrecus Johnson, remembered.

The one thing Johnson couldn’t do? Play.

For 2 years, doctors at the University of Florida wouldn’t clear him. For 2 years, Johnson stayed in shape anyway, shooting jump shot after jump shot from an isolated area of the floor at Florida’s practices. Deep down, though, Johnson thought his career was over.

“Shands Hospital, that’s one of the best in the world,” Johnson said last March. “Doctors invested in me, cared about me. They told me they couldn’t clear me. I thought I was done.”

Just in case he was done, Johnson took out a $5 million insurance policy on his talents, forfeited if he played competitively again.

All the while, he kept working, hoping to be cleared.

Erik Pastrana, now at Georgia, where he is one of the nation’s best young assistant coaches, was a member of the Florida staff last season. Pastrana saw the pain in Johnson’s face as he couldn’t play, even as the young coach marveled at Keyontae Johnson, the person.

“I was only around him for the last year he couldn’t play the game he loves and is such a special player at. But he never had a bad day,” Pastrana told me this week. “He was always positive. Always trying to help his teammates. Always had a quiet confidence and a faith you could feel. Most of us thankfully will live our entire lives without dealing with the adversity Keyontae has had. His response to it has been truly inspirational. What a special human being.”

Johnson was honored in an emotional Senior Day ceremony in Gainesville last March, and for most everyone, with the exception of perhaps Johnson and his family, that seemed to be that on his basketball career.

Johnson was eventually diagnosed with athlete’s heart, a rare condition where cardiac mass increases due to systemic training. After last season, Johnson was cleared by 2 doctors, including one at the prestigious Mayo Clinic, and despite the refusal of UF cardiologists to take the risk and clear him, Johnson elected to return to the floor. For Kansas State, the Mayo Clinic clearance was enough for them to take a chance.

The returns for the Wildcats have been spectacular.

Johnson leads the Big 12 in field goal percentage and effective field goal percentage, and is the league’s No. 3 scorer at 17.9 points per game. Along with Kansas star Jalen Wilson, he is 1 of 2 players in the nation’s best basketball conference to rank in the top 5 in scoring and rebounds per game. His on-court performance has made him a finalist for the Julius Erving Award, honoring the nation’s best small forward.

While Markquis Nowell, the current king of New York and a walking, talking Harlem love letter to the game of basketball, has justifiably commanded headlines, it is Johnson who has provided the All-American soul of this Kansas State team. It’s Johnson, after all, who hit the shot to beat Kansas in January, the game that Nowell said this week “made us believe we could truly be great.”

It was Johnson who hit the crossover, step-back, break my defender’s ankles triple to put mighty Kentucky to bed last weekend in Greensboro.

And it was Johnson who Thursday night scored a team-high 22 points, including a game-high 4 baskets to reclaim the lead, who happily played the role of Robin to Nowell’s Batman as the team from Manhattan, Kansas captured the hearts of Gotham City and advanced to the Elite 8.

Jemore Tang, Kansas State’s affable first-year head coach, understands Johnson’s role, but more vitally, so do Johnson’s teammates. The joy of Keyontae simply playing again is beautiful and pure, and it functions to take the pressure off this Wildcats team, even under the bright lights of Broadway and the bigger stages of the NCAA Tournament, as March bleeds into April and Kansas State inches closer to college basketball’s Holy Grail, the Final Four.

“It’s the joy that young man has in playing that centers us,” Tang said last week in Greensboro. “We don’t get too high or low, or worry too much about if we play well or if we don’t play well or who played 39 minutes like Keyontae did today or who didn’t play. What we embrace is that Keyontae Johnson played basketball today. What we marvel at is Keyontae Johnson being top 5 in the Big 12 in minutes. That’s not a joy you feel. It’s a joy you see. It is truly special to see joy.”

For 2 years, that joy was absent, and appeared unlikely to ever return again. Johnson, the SEC’s preseason player of the year and a preseason All-American ahead of the 2020-21 season, leaned on faith and family to push him through the dark times.

“God got me through this situation. There were a lot of tears. There were doctors who didn’t know if I could play basketball again. I’m just blessed to be here. That’s the first thing I thank God for, and I do that every day. You can’t take a single day for granted.”

Johnson also honors his parents, whether through a hug or a pregame handshake. He embraces his Mom before every NCAA Tournament game and remembers to say “I love you” to a woman who had a harrowing trip to Florida the day he collapsed.  Those frightful moments, when life proved fleeting, aren’t lost on Johnson, and that’s part of why he plays with the infectious joy of a human given a second chance to pursue a dream.

After all, there’s simply no price tag for more time.

I learned that last year, and it’s why I couldn’t, try as I might, stop the tears Thursday night.

There’s no price tag for time.

I didn’t have enough of it.

Cancer found my Dad just 8 weeks after he retired a healthy man, and while doctors promised him they’d “kill it,” cancer put Dad in hospice care just a little over a month after his diagnosis.

There’s no price tag for time.

I had 2 days from the phone call that Dad was in hospice until goodbye. I had 2 days to make a heart-wrenching 10-hour drive from Charlotte to Jupiter, Florida, trying to think of how to pack in a lifetime of gratitude and a half-life more of questions I still needed answered into 2 or 3 more conversations with a man so ill and sedated he had to physically fight to stay awake and talk. And fight he did, making sure I knew, as I fed him Chick-fil-A and Gatorade, that what he cared about most was my happiness, my 2 daughters, and how proud he was of “how truly good” he thought I was and how “it makes me proudest that you always try as hard as you can, son.”

Two days. That’s the time between NCAA Tournament games, if your team is fortunate enough to win and play on the weekend.

Two days, or the number of nights Nika Johnson spent at Keyontae’s bedside at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, her son full of wires and needles, in a coma, as doctors frantically tried to determine why Johnson collapsed, lost consciousness, and nearly, his life.

Two days. There’s no price tag for time, and maybe that’s why it was easy for Johnson to turn down the millions of dollars he was guaranteed if he simply didn’t play and chase his dream and make the most of his precious time instead.

Now, Keyontae Johnson is days from following his enlarged athlete’s heart to the Final Four.

Watching it all unfold, Duke Werner, the UF trainer at the beginning of this story who helped save Johnson’s life, has stood in awe.

“I couldn’t be happier for Keyontae and his family,” Werner told me Friday. “The year he’s had shouldn’t surprise anyone. He’s always been a great player, but more importantly he is a selfless leader. The emotional hurdles he’s overcome are simply amazing. He is as good a young man as I have worked with in my 30 years at Florida. To me, the real story of this has been family. His Mom, Dad, uncle, and grandma are the epitome of strength, courage, trust, and faith. I am just blessed that I’ll always have Keyontae and his family as a part of my life,” Werner said.

In a way, I’ll always have Keyontae Johnson, too.

He was Dad’s favorite Gator basketball player. It wasn’t Joakim Noah, or Al Horford, or White Chocolate, or even Udonis Haslem, who like Dad, grew up in Miami. It was Keyontae Johnson, the mismatch nightmare who did a little bit of everything to help impact winning.

Johnson wasn’t the highest-rated player in Florida’s star-studded 2018 recruiting class, which included former Gonzaga star and current Indiana Pacers rookie Andrew Nembhard. But Johnson was the best of that group, something my Dad noticed fast as we soaked in a Florida NCAA Tournament win over Nevada together, sadly the final Gators basketball game we’d ever attend together in person. Johnson posted the game’s sole double-double, stuffing the stat sheet with 10 points, 10 rebounds, 3 steals and 3 assists.

“A freshman better than all of Eric Musselman’s team full of seniors and future pros. Talk about great moments in John Blackmon’s Gator history,” my Dad said with a smile as we walked out of Wells Fargo Arena into the cold of a midwestern March night. There were so many other great games with Dad. A Final Four in Atlanta and a national championship game with Dad and his best friend, Jimmy Hines. More wins over Kentucky than most hoops fans get in a lifetime. The best of those  we saw together? Scottie Wilbekin diving and getting a loose ball on the floor to seal the SEC Championship and helping Florida post the first 21-0 SEC record in history in 2014. There were so many more, tailgates and tossed footballs and hotel bar beers and stories about his fraternity days at UF and sweet moments too, like waiting until halftime of a close rivalry game to tell me that being a Daddy meant loving with your whole heart, especially (not even) when you are tired or angry or frustrated.

Dad and I were the father and son of certain men’s imaginations by the time I was 5. Gators games even when I preferred LSU because tigers were cool and, ever misguided, I believed purple and gold were better than orange and blue. Dad was a workaholic, but not at the expense of me or my sister. He wasn’t the loudest man or showy, but he was a proud Dad, never late to a baseball or basketball game I had growing up and ready to leave for SEC football weekends by Thursday night, like any self-respecting southerner.

And while no one could ever replace Danny Wuerffel in his sports-loving heart, he loved Keyontae Johnson, and on that night in the NCAA Tournament, we shared what I foolishly expected was the first of many great Keyontae moments together.

“It was just the first round, Dad. We’ll see Keyontae do that again one day, on a bigger stage, in a later round,” I promised.

I didn’t get to keep that promise.

I took time for granted.

I don’t know if you can feel or imagine the pain of others. I think we try, and I try to live with empathy. I admire and value it as a trait.

But I don’t think I can feel the pain Keyontae Johnson felt when he couldn’t play basketball anymore than Keyontae or anyone else can feel my pain in losing my Dad. Grief and pain are a country we have no passport for, and no right of entry.

But maybe that’s the largest lesson in Keyontae’s incredible story.

He’ll never take a day for granted again. He understands time is priceless.

Imagine living with that kind of freedom and joy.

For a moment in March, during this incredible run, I’ve felt that joy from basketball again. I won’t take that for granted.

Perhaps that’s a start.