I love college basketball. It’s my favorite sport to watch and follow. I’ve dreamed for years that we’d get a true simulation with all the trimmings necessary to be able to experience the greatness of the game at home. And while EA has tried to capture the magic through the years, the results have always been pretty average until last year. This year we see a few improvements in “March Madness 2006” (PS2, Xbox).

The highly touted Lockdown Stick certainly increases the relevance of good defense. This is a good thing. In previous iterations, defense has been pretty general, but now you can lock on to your opponent, sidestepping to your heart’s content to stay in front of your man. You’ll get beat every time if you try to guard someone much faster than you, but the new Lockdown feature balances risk and reward extremely well with regard to trapping and blocking passing lanes. Try too hard and too often, and you’ll get burned. Get the hang of it by pacing yourself, and you’ll become a great defensive juggernaut.

The new defensive improvements also enhance transition games. Many college teams make up for their lack of talent with a solid transition game. Getting such a dynamic to come alive is much easier in “Madness ’06” and improves the pace to a significant degree.

Using the D-pad will call plays on defense with all-new diagrams. Be it man-to-man or zone, you’ll be able to call it all on the fly (Well, as “on the fly” as it gets for having to awkwardly change your left thumb movement in the heat of battle.)

In the newly revamped Dynasty Mode, assistant coaches can scrounge up necessary recruiting info so you can pluck high school and junior college talent from the national pool. Like its pigskin brother, “Madness” allots points proportionate to your school’s budget which are then spent on recruits. It’ll take some nice planning to land the EA All-Americans. But you have in-season recruiting to set you up for some 30 years in your hopes for a dynasty.

EA tends to get more detailed with more popular schools, and KU is definitely no exception. From the “Beware of the Phog” banner to hanging jerseys to Big Jay running around to “Rock Chalk Jayhawk” being chanted before the game, Allen Fieldhouse feels more true-to-life than ever before. It’s also deemed by the game as the No. 2 hardest place to play. KU’s own Bill Self is featured on promotional videos regarding the new emphasis on defense in gameplay. As with any other NCAA game, the real player names and likenesses can’t legally be used, so Dickie V and Brad Nessler will be calling the kids by the numbers.

Couple Dick Vitale’s enthusiasm with a plethora of specific college fight songs performed by the actual school bands, and you have a nice presentation that gets you in the appropriate mood. The graphics sport the same decent character and arena modeling, with an added shine to the players for some reason. I believe it’s supposed to simulate sweat, but comes off looking totally unnatural.

Overall, “Madness ’06” improves upon a tried and true formula and adds enough to the core gameplay to warrant a serious look. Diehard college basketball fans should definitely give it a try.