"ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!" - Princeton's Blake Peters Channels Kevin Garnett After Tigers Crush Mizzou

Matt Fitzgerald3/19/2023 3:00 AM

Blake Peters and Princeton advancing to the Sweet 16. Kevin Garnett and the Boston Celtics winning the 2008 NBA Finals. Both united by a universal, three-word refrain.

KG endured years of basketball hardship with the Timberwolves. Valiantly as he tried, he couldn't get Minnesota over the championship hump with pretty minimal help. Once he teamed up with Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo in Boston, the rest was history.

But for this dude Blake Peters to invoke such iconic words in this situation just goes to show he's fully cherishing every single moment of the Tigers' magical run in the Big Dance. The sophomore is a reserve player for a squad that ranks 327th nationally in bench minutes percentage. Peters averaged 5.5 points per contest entering Saturday's Round of 32 action. He lit it up with 17 points and five 3-pointers. Ryan Langborg also balled out for Princeton with 22 points to lead all scorers.

I was looking at KenPom numbers earlier. There's literally nothing in there to indicate that Princeton had the chops to win multiple NCAA tourney games. The only thing they're anywhere near elite at is offensive rebounding prevention (22.7%). That's it. And uh...49th in 2-point field goal percentage? LOL.

And that's not to take anything away from the Tigers. It's actually a compliment and a credit to their chemistry that they've banded together this well. Knocking off Arizona was massive enough. Missouri was licking their chops coming into this one. Expecting to face Zona, only to meet up with a 15th seed from the Ivy League? I'm sure they would've taken that before March Madness began.

Unfortunately for Mizzou, they weren't the Tigers who came out on top on this day. Princeton beat that ass to become the latest Cinderella story. Congrats to Peters and his teammates for getting it done against a formidable SEC foe.

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