McNeese's boom box-carrying student manager Amir 'Aura' Khan runs it back in March Madness

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The student manager with the highest Q rating in college basketball was back, this time for just one game.

Amir “Aura” Khan turned into a social media star during last year's March Madness for leading McNeese out of the locker room carrying his giant, yellow, thumping boom box. The exposure from McNeese's two games in the tournament earned him more than a dozen name, image and likeness deals.

Khan was back on the big stage this week, but his stay was shorter. The 12th-seeded Cowboys were knocked out of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday, losing 78-68 to Vanderbilt.

Khan had planned to be a student manager at N.C. State after former McNeese coach Will Wade left for the Wolfpack after last season. But Khan decided to return to the Cowboys under new coach Bill Armstrong.

“Really just wanted to be back at McNeese,” Khan said in an taped television interview before Cowboys faced Vanderbilt. “Being a manager at McNeese was special to me. And it's home.”

Khan, 23, is from Lake Charles, Louisiana, and applied for the manager job because of his affinity for Wade, whom he’d cheered for while Wade was coaching LSU.

Khan's boom box shtick made him a viral sensation, and he became the first known student basketball manager to receive an NIL deal. Endorsements came from Buffalo Wild Wings, TickPick and Insomnia Cookies, among others.

“Amir is Amir, man,” McNeese's DJ Richards said Wednesday. “It’s funny because I’ll be seeing things on Twitter, and they kind of portray him as someone that he’s not. If you all could ask Amir right now, I’m pretty sure he would be so cool without all the attention, all the things. Everything came to him naturally.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness