INDIANAPOLIS — Shaheen Holloway eats doubt for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and he snacks on it at midnight, too. He devours it. Doubt fuels him.

That’s what makes the game between Holloway’s 15th-seeded Saint Peter’s and No. 2 seeded perennial powerhouse Kentucky in Thursday’s NCAA Tournament opening-round game perfect for him.

This game — Kentucky is an 18-point betting favorite — is made for Holloway, because no one expects him to succeed. Welcome to his life.

Saint Peter’s, making its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2011 as winners of the MAAC Tournament, is not supposed to be on the same hardwood as Kentucky when the two play at 7:10 p.m. on the Indiana Pacers’ Gainbridge Fieldhouse floor.

But when Holloway, who starred as a high school player at St. Patrick in Elizabeth, N.J., and then at Seton Hall, was about to take the Saint Peter’s coaching job, friends told him it was a bad job, how difficult it would be to succeed there.

Holloway listened to the advice and took the job anyway. Four years in, here he is with Saint Peter’s in the Dance.

“That’s who I am,’’ Holloway told The Post on Wednesday after practice. “That’s who I was as a player. People said I couldn’t do this because of my size — I was 5-10. I was told, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that, you can’t be this.’ I became one of the top five players in my class, best point guard in my class. So yeah, that’s something I definitely thrive off of.

“I knew it was going to be a challenge,’’ Holloway said of the Saint Peter’s job. “If you look at my track record, I always went into situations where there were challenges. When I first came to New Jersey, St. Patrick wasn’t really known. When I left St. Patrick, it was a household name. When I went to Seton Hall, Seton Hall was down. It wasn’t the same Seton Hall as it was when P.J. [Carlesimo] was there. When I left Seton Hall, it was back up.

“With coaching, same thing.’’

Holloway worked for Kevin Willard at Iona and helped resurrect a broken program in New Rochelle. When Willard went to Seton Hall, Holloway followed him there and helped rebuild a program that had been so successful under Carlesimo and then dipped when he departed.

If Willard leaves Seton Hall — and there always seem to be rumblings of other schools wanting to poach him for the great job he’s done there — it would be almost surprising not to see Holloway take over the program he once starred for as a player.

“That’s a tough job, and he’s created a culture very quickly,” Willard told reporters the other day. “They have his toughness, they have his grit, but I think they also play with his intelligence. I feel bad for Saint Peter’s because I think they’re going to lose a really good coach.”

We have, indeed, reached the point in Holloway’s Saint Peter’s career where Thursday night’s game could potentially be his last with the Peacocks because that’s how rapidly his star is rising in the college coaching circles.

“I don’t think about stuff like that,’’ Holloway said. “That stuff will take care of itself. Right now, I’m just focused on trying to coach these young gentlemen who look up to me as we try to find a way to get an upset [Thursday] night. That’s where the focus is at. The focus is nowhere else.’’

Kentucky coach John Calipari — who recalled never making a run at recruiting Holloway out of high school for his UMass team back then because Holloway was too good — knows exactly where his counterpart’s focus is. And he’s concerned about it.

“What Shaheen was as a player competitive [with a] will to win, who fights, gets his team together, leads,’’ Calipari said Wednesday. “I’m watching his team now, and I’m like, ‘Whoa, not only do they play for 40 minutes, they never let go of the rope.’ They’re not going to against us. I don’t care. They will not let go of the rope.’’

Holloway said he recruits only players who have a chip on their shoulders. Those players, of course, are the most dangerous opponents of all.

“If you come play for me, you gotta have a chip on your shoulder, you gotta have something to prove, you gotta be tough,’’ Holloway said. “Those are the type of guys that I recruit, because that’s who I was as a player. If you watch my team play, we play tough, hard-nosed defense, guys play with a chip on their shoulder and guys play with something to prove. That’s how we play. That’s how I was as a player and my guys fit my personality.

“A lot of these guys on my team think they belong at Kentucky. So, now they get an opportunity to play those guys.’’