Patrick Samoura

Patrick Samoura (born 15 November 2000) is a Czech professional basketball player for USK Praha of the Czech National Basketball League (NBL). He played college basketball for the Cochise Apaches and the UT Tyler Patriots. He also represents the Czech Republic national team.

Early life Samoura was born on 15 November 2000 in Beroun, Czech Republic to a Guinean father and a Czech mother, who met while studying at the Czech Technical University in Prague. He faced racial prejudice growing up because of his skin color: he says that he "began to notice that something was wrong" in kindergarten based on how he was treated by his classmates and that he slowly learned to deal with it. He and his brother played the game everyday, and Patrick enjoyed it so much that he signed up for a local team. He competed in the 2016–17 Adidas Next Generation Tournament for the USK Future Stars, averaging 6.5 points and 4.8 rebounds per game.

College career Samoura moved to the United States in 2019 to attend Cochise College in Douglas, Arizona, where he played JUCO basketball with the Apaches for two seasons. Unaccustomed to the accelerated pace of play, he later said he felt "completely dead" after his first practice but learned to adjust before the start of the season. As a freshman, he averaged 7.7 points, 6.3 rebounds and 2.4 assists across 30 games, In his sophomore year, shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic, Samoura averaged 8.8 points, 9.1 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game. Samoura led the Apaches with a 16-point, 11 rebound double-double in the first round of the NJCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament, but they fell to Ranger College in his final JUCO game by a score of 68–86. He earned NJCAA first-team All-Academic honors and served on the NJCAA Student-Athlete Council, graduating in May 2021 with a general studies associate degree.

Samoura transferred to NCAA Division II school UT Tyler ahead of the 2021–22 season. He scored 11 points in his first official game, a 116–57 win over Southwestern Adventist on November 17, 2021. Samoura played in 16 games and made 12 starts before his season was cut short due to a knee injury. He averaged 4.9 points and 3.2 rebounds in 19.4 minutes per game. He averaged about two points per game on limited minutes in his first professional season.

Following his freshman year at Cochise College, Samoura returned to USK Praha for the first half of the 2020–21 NBL season, where he became one of the team's key offensive players. On 12 December, he had 26 points, 11 assists, five rebounds and five steals in their 98–94 win over Kralovsti Sokoli in round 14. He left the team in December to rejoin his college team for his sophomore season.

Samoura once again returned to USK Praha in September 2022. then at the 2018 FIBA U18 European Championship Division B, where he averaged 10.4 points, 6.9 rebounds 4.3 assists and 1.3 steals per game en route to a fifth-place finish at the tournament. In the lead-up to the qualifiers he made his senior international debut by in a pair of exhibitions against Finland. He was subsequently included on the 12-man Olympic roster. Samoura started in both of the team's group stage games (against Turkey and Uruguay) at the Victoria OQT in July.