‘Have you ever heard of Little Richard?’

Welcome back to a mostly Mercer-packed edition of BracketRacket, the one-stop shopping place for your offbeat NCAA tournament needs. Today, we get to the bottom of Duke’s dirty trick, take a whirlwind tour of Little Richard’s hometown and try to placate the eggheads in our midst. Without further ado:

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NOW YOU KNOW THE REST OF STORY

Turns out tiny Mercer’s takedown of mighty Duke was even better than it looked.

Never mind all the other advantages the Blue Devils brought to the game that the Bears couldn’t hope to match: NBA-caliber players, a Hall of Fame coach, a bigger budget than two dozen BCS football programs, a pedigree and blue blood (whatever that’s good for), not to mention a 27-minute commute from their campus in Durham to the loading dock at the PNC Arena in Raleigh, N.C.

But just to drive home the point, someone locked Mercer out of its locker room at halftime. We dispatched Associated Press sports writer Joedy McCreary to investigate.

Sophomore Ike Nwamu told him the Bears viewed the setback as just one more hill to climb. They went over their game plan - whispering, we presume, since Duke probably has NSA connections, too - and did what they could to stay loose. Teammates kept reminding each other, as Nwamu put it, “We’ve got a big task ahead of us.”

Barely two minutes passed before someone got the door open. When the Bears came back out after halftime, they shot 58 percent and sank the Blue Devils 78-71.

All that proved is that if the folks at Duke were as smart as they think they are, they would have made sure to lock Mercer in.

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CELEBRITY ALUM OF THE DAY

As the final seconds ticked down on the Mercer-Duke game, former NBA player and coach Sam Mitchell stood in middle of the TSN studios and did his version of an Irish river dance. Mitchell may have been born in Macon, Ga., but he comes by his varied musical tastes honestly.

“Let me ask you a question: Have you ever heard of Little Richard?” the proud Mercer grad began without waiting for an answer. “Have you ever heard of Otis Redding? They’re from Macon, Ga.”

Actually, Redding was born in Dawson, Ga. But just like the classic scene from “Animal House” where Boon overlooks Bluto’s historical faux pas - “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!” - AP’s Jon Krawczynski didn’t interrupt Mitchell because he was rolling.

“Have you ever heard of (former L.A. Lakers guard) Norm Nixon?” Mitchell continued. “That’s Norm Nixon’s hometown.”

And so it is. But among that distinguished crowd, only Mitchell could lay claim to helping the Bears make the NCAAs. But that was back in the early 1980s, and the small school from Macon didn’t win a game.

“It’s one thing to advance in the NCAA tournament,” Mitchell demurred. “It’s a whole ’nother thing to beat a school like Duke.”

“They put us on the map and gave us an identity,” he said, rolling once again. “That’s something that all of us graduates of Mercer will be indebted to these guys for forever. They put us on the map.”

Right. Which still shows Macon exactly 101.3 miles up the road from Dawson.

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THIS JUST IN: HUMANS FALL SHORT OF PERFECTION

Somewhere, Warren Buffett is smiling.

We said that when he went to bed Thursday night, too, but that was a guess. Now it’s official.

As of 4:45 p.m. Eastern, right about the time Stanford beat New Mexico, there were still 16 perfect brackets left among millions of entries. Four hours later, not long after Memphis beat George Washington, the last three were kaput.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Another thing BracketRacket noted the night before last were the odds (9.2 quintillion-to-1, give or take a few hundred trillion, we think) that Buffett would have to fork over the $1 billion himself, since one of his companies served as underwriter for the Quicken Loans Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge.

Those who put a down-payment on a house planning to use proceeds from Mr. Buffett are advised to call his friends at Quicken Loans.

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DUDE, WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS UNDER YOUR ARM? BOOKS?

Dayton wins! Dayton wins!

In your dreams, maybe. Or if this were the old TV show “College Bowl,” instead of the NCAA tournament, then absolutely.

At least that’s what the folks at Inside Higher Ed assured us would happen if the schools filling out the brackets competed at educating students instead of padding their bottom lines. What a quaint notion!

But for those still believe athletes are actually students, here’s the short version of how things would have played out:

Dayton and Kansas are the only two teams to make the Sweet 16 boasting perfect Academic Progress Rates, which is NCAA’s “multiyear measure of a team’s classroom performance” - in this case, from 2008-12. But the two South Region entrants wind up meeting in the Elite Eight, where the Federal Graduation Rate is applied as a tiebreaker, handing a close decision to the Flyers.

Dayton goes on to defeat East Region champ Memphis in the Final Four and winds up in the championship game against Midwest winner Michigan, which got past West region representative American University. See the entire bracket here: https://bit.ly/1gSmSKL

Dayton’s ultimate victory over Michigan means that the Flyers “while talented on the court” in the words of Inside Higher Ed, “also know how to hit the books hard.”

Tell me you don’t feel smarter already.

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STAT OF THE DAY

With only two rounds in the books, Stats LLC notes the all-time mark for most overtime games is in jeopardy. Stephen F. Austin’s come-from-behind thriller against VCU was the sixth OT affair in the tournament, topped only by the seven overtime games in 1995 and 1997. In three other years - 1975, 2006 and 2008 - there were also six games that extended past regulation. That leaves this year’s edition with 31 games, or chances if you like, to match or surpass the all-time mark.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I thought I’d be playing after today.” - Duke sophomore forward Rodney Hood, who along with freshman teammate Jabari Parker is considered a potential NBA pick, explaining why he hasn’t yet considered whether to return to school or go pro.

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FRIDAY’S RESULTS

Second Round

EAST REGIONAL

At Raleigh, N.C.

Memphis 71, George Washington 66

Virginia 70, Coastal Carolina 59

At San Antonio

North Carolina 79, Providence 77

Iowa State 93, North Carolina Central 75

SOUTH REGIONAL

At St. Louis

Stanford 58, New Mexico 53

Kansas 80, Eastern Kentucky 69

At San Diego

Stephen F. Austin 77, VCU 75, OT

UCLA 76, Tulsa 59

MIDWEST REGIONAL

At Raleigh, N.C.

Mercer 78, Duke 71

Tennessee 86, UMass 67

At St. Louis

Wichita State 64, Cal Poly 37

Kentucky 56, Kansas State 49

WEST REGIONAL

At San Antonio

Baylor 74, Nebraska 60

Creighton 76, Louisiana-Lafayette 66

At San Diego

Arizona 68, Weber State 59

Gonzaga 85, Oklahoma State 77

SATURDAY’S GAMES

Third Round

EAST REGIONAL

At Buffalo, N.Y.

Villanova vs. UConn, 9:40 p.m.

At Spokane, Wash.

Michigan State vs. Harvard, 8:40 p.m.

SOUTH REGIONAL

At Buffalo, N.Y.

Syracuse vs. Dayton, 7:10 p.m.

Orlando, Fla.

Florida vs. Pittsburgh, 12:15 p.m.

MIDWEST REGIONAL

At Orlando, Fla.

Louisville vs. Saint Louis, 2:45 p.m.

At Milwaukee

Michigan vs. Texas, 5:15 p.m.

WEST REGIONAL

At Milwaukee

Wisconsin vs. Oregon, 7:45 p.m.

At Spokane, Wash.

San Diego State vs. North Dakota State, 6:10 p.m.