Omar Samhan Clearly Wins the Off Days of the NCAA Tournament

When you get a few double-digit seeded teams into the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, stars are bound to emerge. The nation discovered a guy with personality to match his game, and this time around it’s Saint Mary’s big man Omar Samhan. Andy Hutchins already touched on some of Samhan’s awesomeness this past weekend, but with games rolling around on Thursday (and the Gaels taking the court Friday), it’s time for Samhan to start feeding us more fun.↵↵For people disappointed that he killed his interesting YouTube account (with a NSFW title), I have good news. Samhan has returned to YouTube under the user account “bartocomas.” There are only a few videos on the account, including one from a few weeks ago where his dog cries every time an American Express commercial comes on, but here’s one from Tuesday with Samhan and teammate Ben Allen looking forward to Baylor.↵

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↵So there’s no wild boasting like we heard in the postgame scrum, but if you’re a hoops purist, it’s interesting to hear these guys work through how they approach a game of this importance, particularly when they get to talking X’s and O’s.↵↵It’s also interesting to hear Samhan talk about distractions, because he’s obviously the face of Saint Mary’s hoops at the moment. When he gets to Houston, expect wall-to-wall Samhan coverage. He’s also very active on Twitter as of late and if you want an indication that his profile as an athlete is rising, just check out the rate at which he’s been adding followers. Expect his reach to grow if he winds up on Bill Simmons’ podcast with Ohio State walk-on Mark Titus, as is currently being discussed. Here’s hoping Samhan can stick around in the tournament and keep entertaining us all.↵

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