HOUSTON (AP) -Saint Mary’s big man Omar Samhan won’t be cranking an upbeat rock tune or a banging rap song on his iPod before Friday night’s NCAA tournament game against Baylor.
The 6-foot-11 center will be listening to something decidedly more low-key: He likes to chill out to the sweet sounds of Taylor Swift, an artist whose songs – such as “Love Story” and “Teardrops on My Guitar” – are more likely to show up on iPods of the teen or ‘tween female set.
Doesn’t matter. Samhan makes no apologies for his choice in tunes.
“People think it’s weird,” he said. “But there is so much emotion and excitement before these games, it just kind of slows you down. And it keeps me mellow, because I’m just like a time bomb waiting to go off.”
The way Samhan has been playing, Saint Mary’s fans probably aren’t too concerned with what he’s grooving to before games. Samhan averaged 30.5 points and 9.5 rebounds in the Gaels’ first two tournament games en route to their first appearance in the regional semifinals since 1959.
ing every game this season while shooting almost 56 percent and amassing 97 blocked shots.
Baylor’s Tweety Carter didn’t openly mock Samhan about the Taylor Swift choice, though he seemed to find it amusing.
“I don’t know much about that side. I can’t speak to that side,” Carter said, smiling. “That’s his thing. That’s something he’s got going on that he likes, I guess.”
Samhan’s affinity for the 21-year-old blonde star seems to be about more than her sometimes sappy music.
When asked about his musical tastes on Thursday, Samhan asked if the cameras were on before staring straight into them with a message for her.
“I love you, Taylor. You should call me,” he said before adding that he sometimes feels as though she’s singing directly to him.
Later in the day, Samhan took his campaign to get Swift’s attention to his Twitter page.
“Taylor Swift lets get lunch! I am a Beast you could be Beauty,” he tweeted.
Some college players might try to hide such a musical preference, but Samhan isn’t one of them.
“I love her, and I’m going to keep listening to her,” he said.
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HOME COURT: Northern Iowa already had a good feeling about playing in St. Louis, site of the Midwest Regional, after winning its second straight Missouri Valley Conference title in town earlier this month.
te. After the tournament is over, they’ll take the floor home with them.
The McLeod Center back home has been in need of an upgrade and, before the tournament, athletic director Troy Dannen told the team that if it beat UNLV in the opening round the proceeds would be used to purchase a surface that’s getting a three-game christening this weekend. The floor is somewhat of a bargain at around $100,000, about $20,000 cheaper than a brand new surface, without factoring in the intrinsic value of the Panthers’ first appearance in the round of 16.
Each victory is worth about $1.5 million, and after splitting it with the rest of the conference Northern Iowa’s share was about $110,000. Just right.
The school located in Cedar Falls, Iowa, is about a 5-hour drive north of St. Louis, and the Panthers felt fortunate to be placed in the Midwest bracket. They pulled off the biggest upset of the tournament, knocking off No. 1 overall seed Kansas in the second round, to advance to St. Louis, where they are 6-0 the last two years in March.
“I wish we could say we’re this smart,” Dannen said. “We were just this lucky. I told players during the shootaround, ‘You’re literally playing on your home court. We own this and we should play like it.”’
omen’s basketball and volleyball teams, both of which also made the NCAA tournament field.
“Everybody’s going to get a little taste of tournament success,” Dannen said. “This is the Sweet 16 floor and hopefully by the end of the weekend it’ll have more meaning than that.”
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NOT BIG FANS: Duke’s Jon Scheyer, Lance Thomas and Brian Zoubek looked at each other and smiled when they were asked if they watched rival North Carolina beat UAB to advance to the NIT semifinals Tuesday night.
“I didn’t,” Zoubek said.
“No, I didn’t,” Thomas said.
“Nope,” Scheyer said.
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MOUTH(PIECING) OFF: Saint Mary’s guard Matthew Dellavedova, a shaggy-haired freshman from Australia, doesn’t understand why people are so interested in the mouth guard he wears during games.
There have been several blog posts and tweets calling the oversized, two-toned mouth piece ugly since the start of the tournament. Dellavedova, who is averaging 12.3 points a game, said there really isn’t a story behind it, he simply wants to protect his perfectly straight teeth.
“I got my braces off and I wanted to get a mouth guard to protect the teeth,” he said with a smile to show his pearly whites. “When you go through that you don’t want to lose it.”
When he wore it while playing in Australia, no one seemed to notice.
. “It’s just over here people talk about it. Everything here is sort of a bigger deal, I guess.”
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HAVING HUMMEL: Purdue’s injured star, Robbie Hummel, traveled with the team to Houston and watched practice from a folding chair near the court Thursday.
Purdue coach Matt Painter said it’s good for Hummel, who injured his ACL in late February, to be with the Boilermakers.
“He’s a great teammate,” Painter said. “He helps guys. He sees what’s going on out there on the court. I think it’s always good to have an extra set of guys on your bench, especially with a guy that has the experience that Rob does.”
Painter said Hummel is working to stay positive while his knee heals after surgery.
“It’s very hard going through rehab,” Painter said. “Having surgery and then rehabbing and pushing forward. But, you know, it’s going to take some time, obviously, four to six months. But the surgery was great. Now you’ve just got to go forward and try to keep him in good spirits.”
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TOUGH SELL: The St. Louis Rams’ stadium is the site of the Midwest Regional. The crowd might be similar to that of a 1-15 team that failed to sell out half its home games.
on a single-game basis ranging from $66 to $83 starting Thursday, the day before the regional semifinals.
The Valley is hosting its eighth NCAA event since 1990, with a low-water attendance average of about 23,000 in 2007.
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DUKE’S PLUM RECRUITS: Duke’s regional semifinal matchup with Purdue is personal for Miles and Mason Plumlee.
The Blue Devils’ 6-foot-10 brothers grew up in West Lafayette, Ind., and their mother, Leslie, played for the Boilermakers in the early 1980s. Their father attended Lafayette Harrison High School and their grandfather was an agriculture professor at Purdue.
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ENDS: Saint Mary’s starting five scored 82 percent of the team’s points in the regular season but have scored 146 of 155, or 94 percent, of the points in the tournament. … Purdue has won 22 straight games when scoring 70 points or more. … A win on Friday will give the Boilermakers 30 wins in a season for the first time in school history. … Baylor is in the regional semifinals for the first time in school history. … Baylor had just four NCAA appearances in its history before advancing to the tournament in two of the last three seasons. … Duke limited its opponents to an average of 48.5 points and 35.6 percent shooting in its first two tournament games.
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st judge people for who they are right now. We’re not the Yankees, we’re not, thank goodness, the Cubs. It’s different. It’s college, just give them an opportunity.” – Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, on the Blue Devils living up to the standards of past teams.
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AP Sports Writers Chris Duncan and Stephen Hawkins in Houston and R.B. Fallstrom in St. Louis contributed to this report.
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