{"id":15657,"date":"2011-03-22T22:50:40","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T05:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=15657"},"modified":"2017-06-10T11:11:31","modified_gmt":"2017-06-10T18:11:31","slug":"the-peterson-principle-32211","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=15657","title":{"rendered":"The Peterson Principle 3\/22\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Tim Peterson<\/p><\/div>\n

It started last Tuesday and it hasn\u2019t let up since. There were games every day through Sunday and it all starts over again Thursday. It\u2019s the greatest spectacle in sports.<\/p>\n

The Super Bowl lasts one day. It\u2019s a great day but still it\u2019s only one day. We don\u2019t really get into the World Series until the sixth or seventh game \u2013 same with the NBA Finals. BCS Championship? Sure, it\u2019s riveting but every year after the title game the arguments begin about who the real champion is. When there is no playoff system in place that tends to happen.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what makes March Madness so special. It\u2019s one and done but everybody gets a shot. It\u2019s two weeks of memories that will last a lifetime. Without March Madness we would have never heard of Valparaiso or Ball State. Some school named Cleveland State once had its day in the sun and a few years ago it was George Mason. Penn, yeah Penn, once made it to the Final Four. It gives hope to the little guy. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Everybody loves March Madness. Well everybody except Bob Thorpe. Bob is a good guy. He\u2019s a Dodger fan, roots for the Lakers, pays his taxes and is generally a law abiding citizen. But he doesn\u2019t like March Madness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. I just don\u2019t like college basketball,\u201d Thorpe said the other day sounding a bit confused.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bob will come around one day. It might take a year or two, but eventually he\u2019ll see the light. Either that or I\u2019ll have to send Big Tony over to straighten him out.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This year another one of \u201cthose\u201d schools has crashed the sweet sixteen party. To reach the round of 16 you have to win two games. Well Virginia Commonwealth has had to win three. The Rams were so convinced they wouldn\u2019t get into the dance that they didn\u2019t bother to get together to watch the selection show. But with the field expanded to 68, VCU slipped into the \u201cfirst four\u201d and has since knocked off USC, Georgetown and Purdue to put them into the elite status.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the first time in history that the school has advanced this far. No March Madness and there is no Virginia Commonwealth \u2013 at least not to anybody living outside of Richmond, Virginia.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Richmond, the other school in Richmond, Va. is in the sweet sixteen as well. Seeded number 12, the Spiders, (don\u2019t you love the nicknames) beat Vanderbilt and Morehead State to reach the round of 16. Morehead State wore Cinderella\u2019s slipper in the first round by beating Louisville sending Cardinal Coach Rick Pitino to the announcers\u2019 chair.<\/p>\n

San Diego State isn\u2019t a Cinderella seeded number two, but it was cool to see the Aztecs win their first two NCAA tournament games ever to get to the round of 16. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Locally UCLA fared a little better than the Trojans with a first round win over Michigan State. But for the third time in the last six years the Bruins were eliminated by Florida. The bad news is that the Gators ate up UCLA again; the good news is that with only one key player, (Tyler Honeycutt), possibly leaving, the Bruins are set up for a big year in 2012.<\/p>\n

Josh Smith has the potential to be the best center in the nation.<\/p>\n

Every year names emerge that we talk about for years. This year it\u2019s BYU\u2019s Jimmer Fredette, SDSU\u2019s Kawhi Leonard and North Carolina\u2019s Harrison Barnes. Kemba Walker of Connecticut was a household name already but his NBA stock has risen with his play in the tournament.<\/p>\n

As usual, with the stakes so high, there have been a number of disputed calls. The most controversial being the fouls called against Butler and then Pittsburgh in the last two seconds of their second round matchup \u2013 a game in which Butler ultimately won.<\/p>\n

Say what you will about the referees, but they got this one right.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both calls were the correct calls. They were stupid fouls by the players but correct calls by the officials. Even Bob Thorpe would agree with that. \u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s my principle.<\/p>\n

Tim can be reached at tim@midvalleysports.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It started last Tuesday and it hasn\u2019t let up since. There were games every day through Sunday and it all starts over again Thursday. It\u2019s the greatest spectacle in sports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12817],"tags":[3967,4981,4985,4987,4983,4984,4986,2586,4982,4809],"class_list":["post-15657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fanview","category-petersonprince","tag-big-tony","tag-bob-thorpe","tag-harrison-barnes","tag-jimmer-fredette","tag-josh-smith","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-kemba-walker","tag-march-madness","tag-rick-pitino","tag-tyler-honeycutt"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15657"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59546,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15657\/revisions\/59546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}