No more following Duke to Syracuse. No more riding that North Carolina bandwagon to three different states. No more Scooter-tracking to Boston.

People think it’s neat that we travel across the country to watch basketball every March. And they’re right. Watching basketball is very neat.

It’s all the other stuff that lets us know we are caught up in the madness that is March.

First, it was Mike London, who was with North Carolina, calling in with his dilemma.

For some reason, he couldn’t get booked into the media hotel in Birmingham, Ala. That forced him into a back-up motel, which he said was halfway up on a mountain, no life form in sight ... not even a vending machine, for cryin’ out loud.

He breathed a sigh of relief when the South Regional had ended in Birmingham. Not because North Carolina had escaped but because he had escaped from Witch Mountain.

Steve Hanf, covering Duke, walked into his Syracuse hotel room to find there was no bed. The 6-foot-5 Hanf had to fit himself strategically on a fold-out couch.

Who is booking this stuff, the NCAA? We know how cheap it is but this is ridiculous.

And then, there was my trip to Boston for the McDonald’s All-American Game.

You want ridiculous?

“No way,” Iquickly shot back. “I married a New Yorker. I’ve been in the Manhattan cabs.”

“Worse,” she said. “These are worse.”

Never has someone been so right. My first cab ride — from the airport to my hotel room, which, by the way, cost as much as the plane ticket, let me know I wasn’t in Salisbury, N.C. anymore.

“I’m going the wrong way,” the cabbie said, realizing my hotel was in the other direction. “Watch this.”

Ba-boom-boom.

The guy did a U-turn over the median.

“I hope this cab is a 4-wheeler,” I chuckled to no one in particular.

And then, it hit me. The guy’s flying all over the place and I am so at ease. Considering the chances this guy is taking with my life, why am I so calm?

It’s probably because of that glass partition we sit behind in the backseat. It’s almost like you’re watching it all on TV.

Then I realized I was five minutes late and I’m rooting for the guy. Suddenly, driving up on the sidewalk is a good move.

I noticed the “No smoking” sign in the cab. Is a guy really concerned that much about his health when he’s going 90 up a one-way?

He’s jutting in an out of traffic. All the while, I’m being slung around like I’m part of a pinball machine.

I figure the dumbest thing you can think while in a cab is, “Well, the man knows what he’s doing. He’s a professional cab driver. I can see his cab driver’s license right there.”

Idon’t know what it takes to get a big-city cab driver’s license. I think all you need is a face.

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Scooter Sherrill was staying in one hotel across town, far away from me. So a cab takes me to Scooter for $2.50. A cab takes me back and it costs $4. Hmm. But I didn’t argue. Mainly because I didn’t think either one of the cabbies could understand English.

I felt the same way about the woman in the airport who was trying to explain to me in some type of half-English, half-something jibberish where my luggage was. That’s right. Lost all my clothes.

At 11:30 p.m. on my last night in Boston, a message from the desk told me that my clothes were downstairs.

I tried to be positive. Itold my wife, “I won’t be coming home with any dirty clothes, honey.”

Another Bostonian explained to me why the sellout crowd in the FleetCenter booed each and every time somebody didn’t dunk or made a turnover.

“People in Boston are miserable,” he said. “They want you to be more miserable than they are.”

They accomplished their goal.

And finally, what trip up north would be complete without someone poking fun at the way I talk.

I walked into a restaurant, sat down and ordered “two eggs, over-easy with bacon.” The waitress’ first response was not, “Thank you,” but “Where are you from?”

Not from here, thank goodness, I told her.

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And once the sports guys returned to our desks, we got an earful from one high school baseball coach who gave us a terse speech about the lack of coverage in March.

“Not my fault,” I told him. “It’s Scooter’s fault. If he wasn’t an All-American, I wouldn’t have gone to Boston.

It’s North Carolina’s fault, too. Had the Heels not shocked the college basketball world, Mike wouldn’t have traveled from Birmingham to Austin to Indianapolis.

But we’re all back now. We’re sleeping in our own bed, wearing whatever clothes we want and talking with people whose accents we can understand. There’s some high school, Legion and Boll Weevil baseball games to attend.

And the best part about it? We can all drive ourselves.

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