Arsalan Kazemi - NCAA Basketball (2010-2011 season)

[behzadir]

Arsalan Kazemi's Rice playing against Tulane on their 8th conference game.

He has 5 pts,11 rebs! 1 steal and 1 assist only in the first half.

The score is tied at 31.

Edit:Kazemi with 11 pts and 19 rebs!(career high),a steal,an assist and 1 mind blowing rejection at the end of the game.

Rice win 71-61.

[EKBATAN]

kazemi still on fire


damn i wish there was better footage of his games

[radin119]

^the game was on atdhe yesterday

[EKBATAN]

his last game few days ago again they lost

kazemi had 17 points, 5 rebs, 1 block, 1 assist

(11 out of 11 from free throw line - which means he was great at driving and drawing fouls, it'll be one of his biggest assets if he can be high percentage free throw shooter, nba teams can use a player like him who can drive and snatch fouls)

[EKBATAN]

He's getting an award also

http://www.riceowls.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/021711aaa.html

Rice's Kazemi to Receive Most Courageous Award



Feb. 17, 2011

ST. LOUIS - Arsalan Kazemi of Rice and Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir of Memphis - two student-athletes with similar backgrounds who have had to endure bigotry and discrimination to play college basketball at their respective institutions - have been named co-winners of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association's Most Courageous Award.

Kazemi, a sophomore forward at Rice, is the first Iranian-born athlete to play NCAA Division I basketball. Abdul-Qaadir, a freshman guard at Memphis, is believed to be the first Muslim woman to play in Division I with her arms, legs and hair covered during games in accordance with her Muslim faith.

Kazemi will receive the USBWA's male Most Courageous Award at this year's NCAA Men's Final Four in Houston on April 1. Abdul-Qaadir will be presented with the female Most Courageous Award at the Women's NCAA Final Four in Indianapolis on April 5.

While growing up in Iran, Kazemi watched NBA games and became fascinated by the idea of playing in the U.S. He turned down professional opportunities to pursue his dream.

After his arrival at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport, three U. S. officials questioned Kazemi for six hours. They doubted him when he told them he had flown to the U. S. to play basketball.

"I'm not a terrorist," he told them. "If you don't believe me, deport me."

They didn't deport Kazemi, who knew all along that it would not be easy to play in the NCAA after arriving from a country that was blacklisted by President George W. Bush.

He would need a visa to play in the United States, and the U.S. had not had an embassy in Iran since Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran nearly 30 years earlier and held U.S. diplomats hostage for 444 days. Kazemi had to travel more than 500 miles to Dubai and secure his visa.

Once in the U.S., Kazemi played at The Patterson School in North Carolina and was warned, fearing anti-Iranian sentiment, to avoid telling people where he was from.

Yet, according to the New York Daily News, Kazemi told the truth when a man at a North Carolina gas station asked him where he was from.

"The guy said, 'I am going to kill you,'" Kazemi recalls. "Then he said he was joking. At first, I was scared. If you are me, wouldn't you be, too?"

Kazemi has given coaches a reason to consider recruiting players from the Middle East in the future. At 6-7, he leads Conference USA in rebounding and is among the league leaders in field-goal shooting percentage and scoring.

[behzadir]

Wow getting the award in the final 4,that's big.

Hope he can still impress in Rice's last 5 games.

Next one saturday vs Memphis tigers.

[Darvish11]

1st half over some big highs and big lows

had a couple great drives to the basket, one ending with a great dunk

but he did get dunked on REALLY badly, if tonight wasnt all star saturday it mightve been sportscenter top 10...actually still might (EDIT: IT DID ). It was really bad. Also he got blocked twice in the final seconds of the half

commentators said hes the best player on rice, only player in C USA averaging a double double, 1 of only 8 in the nation doing that

the one thing i got out of this half is that he is actually GOOD. Knows how to post up, has moves, great rebounder, great defender...very promising and definitely not just some scrub who happens to be iranian.

[EKBATAN]

game ended and they won, another double double 11 pts, 12 rebs

[radin119]

[PouriaAkaBarut]

^ What a monster lol

[Ghermez Agha]

arsalan has so much talent i have no idea as to why he would reject maryland, oklahoma state, seton hall, and nebraska to go to rice?! hes never going to play in march maddness -_-

i really hope the knicks draft him in a couple of years from now.....being the biggest knick fan in the world after spike lee....that would make me so happy

[ali alipour]

arsalan has so much talent i have no idea as to why he would reject maryland, oklahoma state, seton hall, and nebraska to go to rice?! hes never going to play in march maddness -_-
i really hope the knicks draft him in a couple of years from now.....being the biggest knick fan in the world after spike lee....that would make me so happy

It's cuz if he went there there is no way he would have played more then like 5 minutes his first year or two. Just like stepehen curry and davidson. Unfortunitely arsalan is not stepehen curry and can not take his team to march madness and get more exposure

[Masoud_A]

Anyone know his vertical?

[Keyan]

arsalan has so much talent i have no idea as to why he would reject maryland, oklahoma state, seton hall, and nebraska to go to rice?! hes never going to play in march maddness -_-
i really hope the knicks draft him in a couple of years from now.....being the biggest knick fan in the world after spike lee....that would make me so happy

because arsalan isn't the kind of guy who wanted to sit out his first year. he wanted to enter the draft his junior yr, plus arsalan comes from a family where education is a big deal. AK is a really really smart brain and not being biased @ all, he's one of the smartest 20 year olds i've ever met. no agent can fool arsalan now or in the future

[Masoud_A]

Radin can you up the video of that sick dunk?