Got to get this in before tipoff, which is about a half-hour away.

Can we get a shout-out for the Butler Bulldogs?

Doesn’t every right-thinking American have to be pulling for Butler? A mid-major in the NCAA basketball Final Four? OK, right-thinking Americans who live in East Lansing, Durham and Morgantown are exempt.

But everyone else? This is a chance to validate my “psychic energy” hypothesis.

And that is this: That if an overwhelming percentage of a viewing audience is pulling for the same team to win … it creates some sort of energy boost for that team. Or maybe it take something away from the other team. I don’t know. But it has to make a difference, doesn’t it? (Didn’t it seem to work in the Super Bowl?)

So, everybody, visualize Butler getting stops and making threes. Ommmm … Yes.

Michigan State, Butler’s opponent here in a moment is also a No. 5 seed but,  c’mon.

Nothing about Michigan State is warm and cuddly. The Spartans are underdogs like Goliath was an underdog. A zillion students, a couple of national titles, six Final Fours in 12 years. A five seed only because the NCAA ranked so many Big Ten teams higher.

Butler isn’t quite a Cinderella. (As coaches like to say, “Cinderella don’t stay out this late!”) But this is a classic mid-major vs.  major-major matchup. And we always pull for the little guy, right?

You want more reasons to pull for Butler other than sheer underdoggedness?

Check this New York Times column on Butler’s president, Bobby Fong. The son of first-generation immigrants who decided he needed to know American sports to understand his new country and has an enormous baseball-card collection. Only in America! And only at some smallish college of 6,000 or so students, like Butler.

And then look at this piece about Butler’s coach, Brad Stevens. Grew up shooting hoops on the driveway. How “Hoosiers” is that? Oh, and he makes $750,000 a year while the other three coaches in the Final Four make $2 million and up. This guy gave up a good job with Eli Lilly to pursue his coaching dream.

Oh, and the movie “Hoosiers”? The final was filmed at Butler’s fieldhouse — because that’s where the famous 1954 Milan-Muncie Central game for the Indiana state championship game was played. Butler’s fieldhouse went up in 1928. So it has oodles of tradition, too.

Oooh, creepy/cool!

So, let’s see … crowd of 70,000 in the Colts’ home stadium, only 4-5 miles from the Butler campus, there in Indianapolis. Everyone in the yard will be pulling for Butler, and I need every man, woman and child (sorry, UCLA cheerleader dude) to stand up and make some psychic noise for the Bulldogs.

Starting right now! And don’t stop till the Bulldogs are cutting down the nets on Monday night. We can do this.