Bay Area Sports Blog

So yeah, new tournament darling Omar Samhan of St. Mary’s has an inappropriately named YouTube channel. Kids, avert your eyes … it’s “poopshower.” We heard Samhan was considering “pooptube” and “showercurtains” and just ended up combining them. No we didn’t hear that. Despite the un-amusing name some of the videos are amusing, if you wanted to be transported back to middle school Spanish class or the Santa Monica Pier.

It’s fitting that Samhan was learning Spanish (poorly), because St. Mary’s is now the world’s team. In Cairo, they love Samhan, who is of Egyptian descent.

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Occasionally we’ll post rebuses: word puzzles based on images. Put the images together and you’ve got a name.

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St. Mary’s 75-68 win over Villanova in the second round of the NCAA tournament was positively kisstastic.

Omar Samhan, who had 29 points in the Gaels’ opening round win over Richmond, poured in 32 against the Wildcats, and was far and away the best player on the floor at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center. Get a dozen for the road, big man. You earned ‘em.

Samhan blew kisses to the camera after the game (that’s what’s happening in the grainy mess on the left, you’ll just have to take our word for it) and St. Mary’s advanced to the Sweet 16, where they will play the winner of today’s game between Old Dominion and Baylor.

Mickey McConnell launched a 25-foot rainbow that kissed off the glass with 1:15 remaining to give St. Mary’s the lead for good in a game that the Gaels controlled from the opening tip. McConnell finished with 15 points and Matthew Dellavedova added 14. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves or anything, but St. Mary’s and Cal could meet in the South Region final.

In a conference call beautifully live-blogged by Center Line Soccer, the MLS announced this morning it reached an agreement with its players union and will avoid a strike. The announcement came five days before the first game of the season and seven days before the San Jose Earthquakes’ opener against defending MLS Cup champs Real Salt Lake.

Now that an agreement has been reached, it’s time to celebrate! Since the MLS brings together the best of Latin America and the (second or third) best of Europe, we propose speaking in Irish accents while drinking tequila and talking dirty in Spanish. Actually, that’s just a thin excuse to post this amazing video. Grab your sombreros and pretty pink jammies, it’s soccer time.

In the whole “reasons Cal will/won’t win in the NCAA tournament” debate, we forgot one key element: Time. The first-round game Friday against Louisville was supposed to be at 10 p.m. EST, 7 p.m. PST. The game was pushed back 20 minutes because of a clock malfunction. And when it did start, the Golden Bears outscored the Cardinals 12-0 to start the game, increased that to 22-4 and held off tired Louisville the rest of the way.

Bring on Duke. Maybe they could start that game at 11:30 p.m. EST.

The only real debate about the game was whether Jerome Randle’s halftime buzzer beater was better than the Houston halftime buzzer beater that followed moments later. You can judge. But we’re all winners here.

San Jose and the St. Mary’s Gaels both starred in what is being hailed by basketball chroniclers as the “Greatest Opening Day” in the history of the tournament. All hail the greatest opening day ever! Bow in worship. To HP Pavilion.

San Jose, especially, was excitement — you might say madness? — central. It started with Murray State’s buzzer-beating upset of Vandy (Dan Belluomini’s Final Four choice, ouch). Then there was Isaiah Thomas’ amazing three-quarter-court shot after the whistle for Washington, followed by Quincy Pondexter’s winner in the final seconds for the Huskies. Montana gave New Mexico all it wanted in the nightcap and almost pulled off the second 14-3 upset of the day.

As for local teams, St. Mary’s handled Richmond and it took Bill Raftery only six-plus minutes of gametime to bring out the “Enter Samhan” joke. I had 10 minutes in my pool, damn.

Cal plays tonight and probably envies the St. Mary’s bracket. It’s looking like a tough road for the Golden Bears, tough enough that even Cal fans are giving 50-1 odds that the Bears make the Sweet 16. Still, there are some reasons they could win. Without further ado, we give Cal the “3 reasons” treatment:

CAL WILL MAKE THE SWEET 16 BECAUSE:

They shoot their free throws good (and are smart enough to tell you that last word should be “well”). If the Bears can get to the line, they came into the tournament ranked 11th nationally in free throw percentage at 75.7 percent.

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Once again we have one of those photos that just represents perfectly the plight of a Bay Area team and says more than we ever could. The Sharks have lost four straight, including last night’s 3-2 failure in Vancouver where the deciding goal was scored by a guy who had yet to score in 33 games this year. Glove to the face, deserved.

49ers GM Scot McCloughan has been at the center of the Bay Area sports universe today after a Matt Maiocco report sparked speculation about his status with the team. The latest? His agent is sticking with the whole “he’s still working there as far as we know!” gambit, according to the AP.

But probably not. McCloughan texted Nancy Gay “I’m fine and moving forward.” Adam Schefter reported that it will be an extended leave of absence for personal reasons. What could those be? 49ersnews.com dug up some dirt on a possible divorce proceeding, but that wouldn’t cause him to leave. If every football coach or front office man going through a divorce left football, the waterboys would be the only ones left.

So that leaves we, the people to speculate. Why would McCloughan be leaving or taking a leave of absence? Cue 90’s sitcom “dream sequence approaching” noise.

• Paraag Marathe put an advanced math problem on a whiteboard at the training facility, McCloughan solved it, and now he needs to cross the country in search of Minnie Driver.
• Needs to start making serious money to afford the rent at Joe Montana’s house.
• Felt guilty about the 49ers jacking up fans’ ticket prices, and decided firing himself would be the only fair response.
• One too many fashion tips from Jerry Rice.
• Kurt Warner broke his heart.
• Wants to sit on the couch and get JaMarcus Russell-level fat.

ST. MARY’S WILL MAKE THE SWEET 16 BECAUSE:

This guy will put Richmond and Villanova (sorry, Robert Morris) under his trance. Kill the prime minister of Malaysia...let Omar Samhan posterize you…kill the prime minister of Malaysia…leave Mickey McConnell wide open…Prime minister of Malaysia bad! Mugato good! (Classic photo is from elefunt_eye’s Flickr stream.)

St. Mary’s shooters will catch fire. Richmond ranks 12th in the nation in 3-point shooting defense, but McConnell, Matthew Dellavedova, Ben Allen, and Clint Steindl are capable of going off, and William & Mary demonstrated that the Spiders are vulnerable against teams that shoot threes in bunches.

It is their destiny. OK, maybe not, but the school hasn’t won an NCAA tournament game since 1959. They’re due! Right?

ST. MARY’S WILL NOT MAKE THE SWEET 16 BECAUSE:

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The JaMarcus Russell weight watch 2010 is reaching frenzied heights thanks again to CSN. Kate Longworth tracked down JaMarcus yesterday and interviewed him in his car, thus furthering the debate over whether he is, actually, still in shape.

You might say Longworth and Greg Papa got into too much analysis about the weight of JaMarcus’ face, since that was his only body part showing during the interview. But we think they didn’t analyze enough. After all, Dr. Stephen Gullo (“the weight-loss guru of Wall Street,” who knew traders were so fat?) says the face is the first indicator of fatness.

If you’ve ever looked closely at a person who has put on a significant amount of weight or has binged on carbohydrates, his face often looks puffy and distended. This is what some of us who work in the field of weight management call the ‘carb face.’

Does JaMarcus still have his carb face, and thus, his carb body? We’ll analyze the geometric angles of his 2010 face vs. his 2009 face and get back to you on the next edition of JaMarcus Russell Weight Watch 2010.

Here’s the video: