Spring has definitely sprung.

The birds are singing. The sun is shining. And the new men’s and women’s basketball national champions have been crowned.

Even though I picked Iowa State to make it to the Final Four and UMass to win the thing, it was a great tournament — a regular SEC Fest.

The end of it marks the start of my favorite two seasons — spring (My birthday is April 25 — feel free to send any gifts to me at the Daily. It’s always good to think ahead when shopping for that perfect gift.) and summer. I love to play out in the summer sun.

All the signs of the new seasons are in bloom.

Monday was the opening day of baseball season, as you all well know. I love playing the sport, but watching is another story. Efforts have been made since the strike to get attendance up at games and make the game move at a faster pace.

Ha! Fat chance! Literally, fat chance at getting the big boys of summer to move their cellulite-filled butts.

Nothing like an uneventful Sunday afternoon ball game to put you to sleep like a baby.

Just give ’em another doughnut and a dollar every time they can make it to the fence and tell them to shut up and also to be nicer to Jeff Busch. He seems like a nice guy and he’s from Iowa State.

Don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of hard workers and great athletes in the sport, but if Kirby Puckett’s butt gets any bigger, they’re going to have to enlarge the batter’s box.

But did you see the umpire who died of a heart attack in Cincinnati? All 328 pounds of John McSherry dropped face first into the dirt behind home plate because his heart beat out of control. That stuff happens, but it sure is weird.

Iowa State softball and baseball are in full swing now, too. Make sure you catch a game or two this year.

But before I totally move on, I have one thing on my mind. For the past four years, one team has been missing from the ISU women’s basketball schedule — Iowa.

I am disturbed by this as I was when Iowa State officials decided to leave out UNI in future football slates.

Granted, the last time the Cyclones beat the Iowa women was in the 1981-82 season. And granted, the Hawks have annihilated us on the hardwood by some rather large margins — 44 points in 1988-89 (93-49), 20 in 1990-91 and 19 in 1986-87.

But, dammit, we gave it our best effort. Hey, those numbers were from when we were bad. Now we’re good so I called around and found out that Iowa is tentatively slated for next year.

Iowa just got a new coach, Angie Lee, who was just recently named coach of the year.

The first thing Bill Fennelly did when he got here was to try to get Iowa back on the schedule. Smart man.

If we can play teams the caliber of Iowa, teams that consistently make it to the NCAA Tournament, it can do many things for the already climbing program.

The conference is already packed with talented teams including the new four in the Big 12. Playing Iowa could better ISU’s status in the conference and up chances to play in a post-season tourney because of the competition.

Some of the best high school basketball players in the state attend the schools and are missing a huge rivalry.

It’s huge to the fans, too.

April Samp is a sophomore in journalism from Eldora, Iowa.