Princeton again spreads its Ivy poison

Dispatches from the long March, Part 3

Blake Peters has owned 24 hours of fame before. At Evanston Township High, north of Chicago, he once hit an 80-footer to beat Maine South. It wound up on ESPN, particularly because Peters was wearing Kurt Rambis-style glasses at the time. “They make me look intellectual,” he said.

Peters had thrown the ball away on the prior possession. His big shot came after a missed free throw, and was sent and re-sent everywhere. This happens now and again, and usually the author of such a freakish moment settles back into the everyday crowd. In Peters’ case he kept showing up at the gym and “getting up shots,” as the players say. He suspected that he wasn’t done with video celebrity.

On Saturday, Princeton and Peters wrote a second act. It already had taken down Arizona in the first round of the NCAA tournament, 59-55, on Thursday. Such 15th seeds usually wake up to reality in the next game. Instead Princeton imposed its own truth. It drilled Missouri, 78-63, the third most decisive win of the eight games played in the second round Saturday. Peters scored 17 in his 15 minutes off the bench, against the alma mater of his grandparents. He took eight shots, all 3-pointers, and made five.

Peters averaged 5.9 points this season and took 141 shots, 130 of which were 3-pointers. He hit 40 percent of those. But this wasn’t one of those bombs-away upsets. Princeton grabbed 16 offensive rebounds, turned them into 17 second-chance points and allowed Missouri only two, and led in the second half by margins ranging from six to 21 points.

Coach Mitch Henderson and the rest of the Tigers assured everyone that they weren’t surprised by this weekend in Sacramento, but they should understand why most people were. Princeton blew an 18-point lead in the last eight-and-a-half minutes agaisnt Yale on Feb. 18, and lost by 10 in overtime. It played a nondescript schedule outside the Ivy League and was ranked 91st by Kenpom.com The 92nd team was Furman, which booted Virginia out of the tournament on Thursday.

Henderson’s retort is that the Ivy League is better than people think, and he has a point. Some commentators didn’t even get Princeton’s history straight on Saturday, forgetting that the Tigers indeed finished third in the 1965 NCAA tournament, when Bill Bradley walked the earth.

It was a big day for the whole athletic department. Princeton’s women are still alive in the NCAA after a win over North Carolina State. At the NCAA wrestling tournament, Patrick Glory won the 125-pound championship, a first for a Tiger wrestler since 1951. Glory days, indeed.

Few enjoyed it more than Ryan Langborg, the La Jolla Country Day grad who blistered Missouri with 22 points and six rebounds on the same Golden One Center floor where he won a state high school championship. Langborg was ignored on the All-Ivy teams ballot. Yes, a member of the elites can have a chip on his shoulder, too, even though it might be monogramed.

Princeton now goes to Louisville next week and plays the winner of Sunday’s Creighton-Baylor game. All the Tigers have lost is the element of surprise. And now Blake Peters is lighting up the nation’s IPhones again. If he chose to, he could analyze this run in Chinese.

“He wants to be Secretary of State,” Henderson said, but after this one Peters put his diplomatic instincts aside. He looked nto a CBS camera and yelling, “Nothing is impossible.” Folks on the Internet already knew that.

Otherwise:

Best performance: Olivier Nkamhoua of Tennessee tied his career high 27 points, on 10 of 13 shooting, as Tennessee bullied Duke, 65-52. Nkamhoua’s first 27-point game was against Texas, so he’s comfortable against the heavyweights. He plays for Finland’s national team and his mother is Finnish. His father Christian, from Cameroon, also hooped in Finland and moved the family to Rockville, Md. so Olivier could accelerate his game. The Vols derailed the hottest team in college basketball with their age and physicality, and by limiting Duke to 2 for 11 on 3-pointers in the second half and getting assists on 15 of their 23 buckets.

Best team performance: Arkansas eliminated top-seeded Kansas with a second-half rally, 72-71, and got 25 points from Davonte Davis and 21 from Ricky Council IV. The Jayhawks still didn’t have Bill Self on their bench, after doctors implanted stents to solve clogged arteries around his heart. They also suffered a late 10-second violation and their bench got outscored, 18-5. The Razorbacks were 8-10 in the SEC and lost six of their final nine, but were refreshed by the chance to play someone else. They beat Illinois by 10 before they took on Kansas. This is Arkansas’ third consecutive Final 16 trip and its first win in 11 shots against a No.1 seed. It also means Florida will remain the last team to win back-to-back NCAA titles (2006-07).

Best travelers: San Diego State jetted to Orlando and won twice, including a 75-62 thumping of Furman that wasn’t that close. If the Aztecs keep shooting 50 percent from three-point land, there’s no telling where they’ll go. Micah Parrish became one of many super-subs over the weekend, scoring 16 in 21 minutes with six rebounds.

Best half: Top-seeded Houston was in trouble against Auburn Saturday, trailing by 10 at the half. Then it won by 17 (81-64), snuffing questions about why Auburn was playing in nearby, friendly Birmingham against a No. 1. It didn’t matter because Houston held the Tigers to four-for-24 shooting in the second half, and Auburn missed 17 of 36 free throws overall. Marcus Sasser says he still feels his groin injury, but scored 22 anyway.

Most clutch: UCLA needed every free throw it could get from Tyger Campbell in order to beat back Northwestern, and Campball hit all 12 in a 68-63 win. Campbell was 0-for-7 from the field for the Bruins, who now await the true extent of David Singleton’s last-minute ankle injury.