I have to admit it. I never liked college sports. I’m from South Dakota, and there wasn’t really a prevalent athletic program at any of the schools. I went to a couple of Augustana College basketball games, but it was just never very close to my heart.

I also thought college sports were stupid in that they seemed to overshadow the actual point of going to school — to learn. Scholarships were doled out in the name of bringing in more money to the school while smart kids who couldn’t shoot a basketball were denied, and athletes who were supposed to be students first rarely went to class but were exalted as heroes.

It just wasn’t right, and it seemed to me to be nothing worth cheering for.

But then I came to Iowa State, and the Cyclones started growing on me.

When I first started at Iowa State, the men’s team was having a banner year. I got to sit in the third row of the arena circle, and I even traveled to Manhattan, Kan., to see them beat the Wildcats.

The Cyclones were growing on me.

Now that the women’s team is so incredible, everyone says they were one of those few Cyclone faithful who came to the games when no one else did. I’m no Wild Bill, but I did go to two women’s games my freshman year. With Jayme Olson and Janel Grimm (not to mention Monica and Stacy), the team was fun to watch, and you could tell they were ready to fly.

My sophomore year, the women’s team took off. As Jayme lept into Janel’s arms when ISU beat Iowa for the first time in years, I cried a little bit, knowing how special it was for those women to have accomplished so much. When they lost to Rutgers in the second round of the NCAAs at Hilton, I stood with the rest of the near sell-out crowd and applauded the women. The final score of the game didn’t matter.

The men had a difficult year, even with the stellar play of McDonald’s All-American Marcus Fizer. But after coach Tim Floyd left for the Bulls, I was at the press conference introducing the new coach. Cyclone fans welcomed Larry Eustachy, and we knew ISU would rebound and rebuild into a top 25 team. We just didn’t know how soon.

The Cyclones were growing on me.

My junior year, the men showed their growing pains as they struggled to gel as a team under their new head coach. But they made steady improvement throughout the year, and I was standing in the arena circle as Fizer dunked the ball during the Cyclones’ thrilling 52-50 win over Kansas on Feb. 28.

The women continued to roll all season long. Stacy Frese, Megan Taylor and freshman sensation Angie Welle took the team to another level, and I was in the crowd at the University of Cincinnati when ISU upended UConn to advance to the Elite Eight. That win and even the heart the women showed in their loss to Georgia the next Monday made a 20-hour drive from Denver worth it just to see them play.

And this year.

The women have been awesome. Even when they struggled, they played through it. They’ve never lost their intensity, and they are so much fun to watch.

And the men? Out of nowhere (or perhaps out of a Brooklyn, N.Y., playground), the Cyclone men took off. They’ve obliterated everyone’s expectations, and they continue to amaze the whole nation.

I don’t love our basketball teams just because of any one player, although Marcus and Jamaal and Lindsey and Angie make good cases.

I don’t love our teams just because of their coaches, although Bill and Larry are the two finest coaches in the country.

And I don’t love our teams just because of the fans, although there are no fans in the world like Hilton fans.

I love the Cyclones because of the whole package.

I love the Cyclones because we never give up, even when we’re nine down with six minutes to play at Texas.

I love the Cyclones because we’re not afraid of anybody, not Eduardo Najera, not Doug Gottlieb, not Mamadou N’diaye — not anybody.

I love the Cyclones because we get no respect — particularly from opposing players and members of the NCAA selection committee — and we still don’t care. We just go out and earn it, every single game.

The Cyclone players have heart, they have skill, they have intelligence. They work hard, on the court and in the classroom. They love the fans, they come to play, and they represent us well.

College athletics still has a lot wrong with it. There are dirty programs, there are miserable students, there’s betting, there’s illegal donating. And athletics still plays far too large of a role at institutions that are supposed to be about learning.

But Iowa State is a shining example of what’s right with college sports.

Cyclone fans are notorious for suffering. We’ve toiled through abysmal seasons when nothing goes our way. But this year we can be proud. And we owe it all to these two teams.

So thank you, Iowa State men’s and women’s basketball players. You’ve grown on all of us.

Final Four, here we come!

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Sara Ziegler is a senior in journalism and political science from Sioux Falls, S.D. She is editor in chief of the Daily, and she is sincerely sorry to her professors for the classes she’s going to skip in the next two weeks. Go Cyclones!