Ali lands knockout blow of Jayhawks
By Pat Forde
ESPN.com
OKLAHOMA CITY -- The kid does not emote.
Ali Farokhmanesh plays basketball with the stoicism of a palace guard. No smiles, no woofs, no frowns. Even while fracturing defenses with his jump shot, his on-court expression never varies.
So you knew this was a seminal moment -- One Shining Moment, if you will -- when the Northern Iowa guard clenched two fists in front of his chest, bent back and howled at the heavens. For just a minute, Ali looked like that other Ali, snarling over Sonny Liston with a ****ed fist after knocking him down in Maine in 1965.
Farokhmaneh's reaction after his last-minute 3 said it all. His fearless 3 with 30 seconds left on the shot clock was the key shot in UNI's upset of KU.
There was no prone body at Farokhmanesh's feet, at least not literally. But that's where he laid out the No. 1 Kansas Jayhawks Saturday, 69-67, imploding a million brackets but gaining a million admirers with his haymaker/heartbreaker that shook the nation.
Ali, bomaye!
Not long before that outburst, the lightly recruited son of an Iranian immigrant volleyball coach had taken one of the all-time no-no-YES! jump shots in NCAA tournament history. With 35 seconds left and the Panthers wobbling badly against the desperate Jayhawks, in danger of losing a game they had controlled from the opening minutes, Farokhmanesh pulled up on a two-on-one fast break
Northern Iowa led by a single point at that moment, after being up a dozen with just more than 12 minutes to play and up seven with 70 seconds left. And Farokhmanesh hadn't made a blessed thing the entire second half. He had missed seven straight shots after hitting all four in the first half.
Conventional wisdom says a cold shooter trying to protect a fragile lead does one of two things in that situation: drive and dish to teammate Johnny Moran on the opposite side of the court, or run some clock with the dribble. Instead, with the swagger of that other Ali, Farokhmanesh chose Option C. He rose to shoot from 21 feet out.
Teammate Adam Koch, your reaction?
"Honestly? It was 'Oh God,' " Koch admitted. "I wasn't sure. But if anybody's going to shoot it, Ali's going to do it. And Ali's probably going to make it."
It was that unbreakable confidence that Farokhmanesh carried into a shot that had to scare the daylights out of every Northern Iowa fan. When Kansas defender Tyrel Reed backed away from him into the paint -- "I really didn't think he was going to shoot it," Reed said -- it was time to ignore the enormity of the situation and let if fly.
"Might as well shoot it," Farokhmanesh said of his thought process. "I thought that was the best shot we were going to get. In the last seconds of a game with the chance to beat the No. 1 team in the country, you'd better take it."
This is what the senior from Iowa City does: He makes big shots. And this is why he has become the face of this endlessly suspenseful and surprising NCAA tournament.Honestly? It was, 'Oh God.' I wasn't sure. But if anybody's going to shoot it, Ali's going to do it. And Ali's probably going to make it.And, at winning time, they had the best advantage of all: Ali Farokhmanesh.
His parents, Mashallah Farokhmanesh and Cindy Fredrick, quit their volleyball coaching jobs two years ago to follow their only child's basketball career. They traveled the Midwest in their Honda CR-V, driving 16 hours round-trip at times -- with no hotel stay -- to games as distant as Evansville, Ind., and Carbondale, Ill., and Wichita, Kan.
When Mashallah came to this country in 1978 to learn English, he didn't know that he'd end up earning a master's and a Ph.D. and staying for the rest of his life. And he didn't know much about basketball. But both parents did their best to coach Ali, taping a broom to a yardstick and holding it up to help him learn how to arch his shot over taller players.
When Ali used that shooting form to swish the clinching free throws with five seconds left, Fredrick stuck a fist in the air. Mashallah thrust up two. Sitting in the second row at the Ford Center Saturday night, they saw their journey of support for their son extended a few more days at least.
And they saw Ali land the knockout blow that made him the household name-and-a-half of March Madness.
Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He
can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.
By Pat Forde
ESPN.com
OKLAHOMA CITY -- The kid does not emote.
Ali Farokhmanesh plays basketball with the stoicism of a palace guard. No smiles, no woofs, no frowns. Even while fracturing defenses with his jump shot, his on-court expression never varies.
So you knew this was a seminal moment -- One Shining Moment, if you will -- when the Northern Iowa guard clenched two fists in front of his chest, bent back and howled at the heavens. For just a minute, Ali looked like that other Ali, snarling over Sonny Liston with a ****ed fist after knocking him down in Maine in 1965.
Farokhmaneh's reaction after his last-minute 3 said it all. His fearless 3 with 30 seconds left on the shot clock was the key shot in UNI's upset of KU.
There was no prone body at Farokhmanesh's feet, at least not literally. But that's where he laid out the No. 1 Kansas Jayhawks Saturday, 69-67, imploding a million brackets but gaining a million admirers with his haymaker/heartbreaker that shook the nation.
Ali, bomaye!
Not long before that outburst, the lightly recruited son of an Iranian immigrant volleyball coach had taken one of the all-time no-no-YES! jump shots in NCAA tournament history. With 35 seconds left and the Panthers wobbling badly against the desperate Jayhawks, in danger of losing a game they had controlled from the opening minutes, Farokhmanesh pulled up on a two-on-one fast break
Northern Iowa led by a single point at that moment, after being up a dozen with just more than 12 minutes to play and up seven with 70 seconds left. And Farokhmanesh hadn't made a blessed thing the entire second half. He had missed seven straight shots after hitting all four in the first half.
Conventional wisdom says a cold shooter trying to protect a fragile lead does one of two things in that situation: drive and dish to teammate Johnny Moran on the opposite side of the court, or run some clock with the dribble. Instead, with the swagger of that other Ali, Farokhmanesh chose Option C. He rose to shoot from 21 feet out.
Teammate Adam Koch, your reaction?
"Honestly? It was 'Oh God,' " Koch admitted. "I wasn't sure. But if anybody's going to shoot it, Ali's going to do it. And Ali's probably going to make it."
It was that unbreakable confidence that Farokhmanesh carried into a shot that had to scare the daylights out of every Northern Iowa fan. When Kansas defender Tyrel Reed backed away from him into the paint -- "I really didn't think he was going to shoot it," Reed said -- it was time to ignore the enormity of the situation and let if fly.
"Might as well shoot it," Farokhmanesh said of his thought process. "I thought that was the best shot we were going to get. In the last seconds of a game with the chance to beat the No. 1 team in the country, you'd better take it."
This is what the senior from Iowa City does: He makes big shots. And this is why he has become the face of this endlessly suspenseful and surprising NCAA tournament.Honestly? It was, 'Oh God.' I wasn't sure. But if anybody's going to shoot it, Ali's going to do it. And Ali's probably going to make it.And, at winning time, they had the best advantage of all: Ali Farokhmanesh.
His parents, Mashallah Farokhmanesh and Cindy Fredrick, quit their volleyball coaching jobs two years ago to follow their only child's basketball career. They traveled the Midwest in their Honda CR-V, driving 16 hours round-trip at times -- with no hotel stay -- to games as distant as Evansville, Ind., and Carbondale, Ill., and Wichita, Kan.
When Mashallah came to this country in 1978 to learn English, he didn't know that he'd end up earning a master's and a Ph.D. and staying for the rest of his life. And he didn't know much about basketball. But both parents did their best to coach Ali, taping a broom to a yardstick and holding it up to help him learn how to arch his shot over taller players.
When Ali used that shooting form to swish the clinching free throws with five seconds left, Fredrick stuck a fist in the air. Mashallah thrust up two. Sitting in the second row at the Ford Center Saturday night, they saw their journey of support for their son extended a few more days at least.
And they saw Ali land the knockout blow that made him the household name-and-a-half of March Madness.
Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He
can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.
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