A-craterin' we will go ...

 Well, now. Didn't see THAT coming.

"You mean St. Peter's knocking out Kentucky in overtime, Mr. Blob, thereby throwing a fragmentation grenade into a million NCAA brackets?" you ask.

Yes.

"You mean Indiana hitting the wall in a head-on accordion job against St. Mary's, losing by 29 in a game a lot of people -- including you, Mr. Blob -- had as a 12-over-5 upset?" you ask.

Also yes.

"You mean Iowa losing to Richmond in an actual 12-over-5 upset? Which, by the way, destroyed poor Dick Vitale's bracket, because he had Kentucky playing Iowa in his championship game?"

Again, yes.

All of the above, which is why the first two days of the NCAA Tournament are always the best part of it. If it's not a couple 4-seeds (Arkansas and UCLA) surviving by the skin of their teeth against a couple of 13-seeds (Vermont and Akron), it's a 15-seed (St. Peter's) plunging one of America's most rabid fan bases (2-seed Kentucky) into mass depression. Or it's Richmond beating Iowa, or  Indiana abruptly running out of gas in a game a lot of smart guys saw as the biggest potential 12-over-5 upset of the day.

Ye gods, St. Mary's had the Hoosiers down by 34 at a couple of points in the second half. It was a 28-26 game with just under six minutes left in the first half, and then it wasn't. Indiana scored seven points across the next 17-plus minutes, St. Mary's scored 39, and suddenly it was a 67-33 butt-kicking and the Hoosiers' season was gone.

Now, I don't know if playing five games in eight days had anything to do with Indiana so abruptly and spectacularly slamming the wall. I don't know if beating Wyoming in Dayton late Tuesday night, not getting into Portland, Ore., until 7 o'clock Wednesday morning and then playing a very good west coast team on the west coast 36 hours later translated into the Hoosiers shooting 34 percent and once again going Brick City from the 3-point line, where they missed eight of their 10 attempts.

It is, as they say, a theory, and a pretty reasonable one. But it's also something of a cop-out. These are premier athletes in the prime of their youth, with the astounding recuperative powers that come with that. Thirty-six hours should have been enough to reset the internal clocks. You would think.

Clearly, however, that wasn't the case. And when you add in the St. Peter's shocker, and the date, the lesson is obvious: Never play a Saint team on St. Patrick's Day. It's bad karma.

Also, never expect your bracket to escape the first two days of the tournament un-cratered. Never, ever, ever.