Totally foreseeable Madness

 You knew it was going to be like this. Right?

In a season when half of America was ranked No. 1 at one time or another, you knew the Madness would be particularly, deliciously Mad come March. When there are no favorites, everyone's a favorite. Even the Blob said that -- and the last time the Blob said anything that made sense, it was "Ya know, that Putin guy is kind of a jerk. Prolly shouldn't trust him."

In any event, half the Sweet Sixteen is set now, and half of those have already ruined your bracket. Let's review, shall we?

You've got an 8-seed (North Carolina) that booted 1-seed and defending national champion Baylor, but not before blowing a 25-point lead with 11 minutes to play.

You've got an 11-seed (Michigan) even some diehard Big Ten fans thought would be gone in its first game, but which instead handled by double digits a 3-seed a lot of folks thought was underseeded (Tennessee).

(A brief aside: And how redemptive was that sweet moment in the handshake line, the source of Michigan coach Juwan Howard's infamy? When he hugged that sobbing Tennessee kid -- who'd played on a club team with Howard's son -- this year's One Shining Moment montage had an early entry. Bank it.)

Moving on ...

You've got three 4-seeds -- among them Providence, whom a lot of wise guys thought was such a lightweight 13-seed South Dakota State was a lock to take it out the first round.

Oh, yeah. And you've got 15-seed St. Peter's, America's darling, which did it again Saturday, this time ousting 7-seed Murray State to reach the Sweet Sixteen.

This makes the Peacocks only the third 15-seed to reach the Sweet Sixteen in 37 years. They represent a teeny-tiny school in New Jersey with an undergraduate enrollment of 2,134. This makes St. Peter's two-and-a-half times smaller than Carmel High School, which has an enrollment of 5,400.

But the Peacocks are in, and overall No. 1 seed Gonzaga is in after barely scraping past 9-seed Memphis, and so it goes, and so it goes. Today another woefully underseeded team -- 11-seed Notre Dame, which inexplicably was assigned a play-in game after tying for second in the ACC -- takes on 3-seed Texas Tech after destroying 6-seed Alabama in the first round.

More possible Madness. See also: 7-seed Ohio State vs. 2-seed Villanova, 7-seed Michigan State vs. 2-seed Duke, 11-seed Iowa State vs. 3-seed Wisconsin.

Let the lovely mayhem continue.