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Championship Monday unfolds similar to semifinals Saturday, with media arriving at the Superdome later in the day. By 6:45 p.m., TV people are bustling around the concourse for the 8:20 tipoff, and everyone in the workroom looks a little extra primped for the final game of the season. Waiting to take the floor, I meet blogger Adam Zagoria from New York, who has longish flyway hair and a sport jacket of designer drape over an untucked button-down. Zag's Blog is known ‘round the workroom for its college basketball recruiting scoops and coverage of the Knicks. And Dan Wolken, a recent print media evacuee who bypassed traditional websites for the Daily, Rupert Murdoch's tablet newspaper venture.

As I head onto press row, I pass Clifford Early and Dan the Man Leach sitting overflow.  They're taking phone pictures, and I say, "You guys look like you're having a ball!"

"We are!"

Kentucky beats Kansas in a game never much in doubt, a fait accompli. Toward the end, an NCAA staffer comes around with an instruction sheet. We're advised confetti will drop from the ceiling when the final buzzer sounds (in reality it will explode out of the Close Encounters video array, with several startling concussive bangs), and if we're not working, we might want to close our laptops to protect our keyboards from the confetti. Among the rules for the trophy presentation and net cutting, interviews are to pause during the playing of the "One Shining Moment" video montage on the arena screens.

Later, out in the concourse, I spot Matt Jones talking on his cellphone, doing a post-game radio call-in show for fans back in Kentucky. He gives me a winning smile and a thumbs up, unabashedly ecstatic about Kentucky's eighth national championship.

Then it's back to the Marriott for an NCAA media dinner, scheduled to run until 3 a.m. Everyone is invited — print, mainstream Web, fan sites, blogs, tablet apps.  It's a celebration, at segregated tables, of a job well done.