OKLAHOMA CITY — In the end Saturday, it was a bunch of desperate All-Americans against the shortest kid on a team no one believed in but he and his teammates.
Ali Farokhmanesh stands 6 feet tall and didn’t get a sniff from either major school in his home state of Iowa. He’s the refugee of two junior colleges. He hopes to get a job in marketing this fall.
Flailing away trying to stop him was a stableful of Kansas Jayhawks on the way to big coin in the NBA once they wrap up this national title, at least according to a lot of office brackets.
But with 35 seconds left in the second round, Farokhmanesh took a shot that changed all their lives forever. The 3-point bomb gave Northern Iowa, the ninth seed, a 66-62 lead, and the Panthers went on to knock off top-ranked Kansas 69-67.
Northern Iowa (30-4), the pride of the Missouri Valley Conference, had never even played a top-ranked team. Chances are, the country now knows more about it than that it’s in the northern part of Iowa.
“I guess we came into the game looking at it like a basketball game,” senior forward Adam Koch said. “We were confident going into it. There wasn’t really any special emphasis put on who we were playing.”
They got an idea in the last 10 minutes. The Jayhawks, down 52-41 thanks to a textbook defense they couldn’t solve, put on the press. Suddenly, it was Kansas athleticism against a bunch of guys from northern Iowa.
It broke UNI’s offensive rhythm, and Kansas started going inside. Farokhmanesh, whose 3-pointer beat UNLV in Thursday’s first round, missed three straight bombs. Twice the Panthers couldn’t get the ball past Kansas’ foul line, and Sherron Collins’ layin cut the lead to 63-62 at 42.8. After a Kansas timeout, Farokhmanesh found himself wide open 25 feet from the basket. Only seven seconds had run off the shot clock.
Risking plane fare to Antarctica, he let it fly.
Farokhmanesh is the son of a volleyball coach who played for Iran in the 1980 Olympics. The son acquired the family’s Kodak moment in athletics when that shot went in.
“I was going to see if I could drive it,” Farokhmanesh said. “Then he backed off so far that I thought I might as well just shoot this one.”
It was his fourth trey on his way to a game-high 16 points but he was far from hot, not that it mattered to a 38-percenter 3-point shooter.
“I don’t know if Coach really wanted him to shoot that,” guard Johnny Moran said, “but if you know Ali, you know that shot is going up at the end of the game.”
Credit coach Ben Peterson, who shot up even higher on the hot coaches list this weekend. He shuttles in subs like a hockey coach but never for a missed shot.
“If they defend the way they’re supposed to,” Jacobson said, “they can play the way they want on offense.”
Against the fifth highest-scoring team in the country (81.8 ppg), UNI earned the right to shoot away. The Jayhawks were awful offensively. They committed 15 turnovers and their backcourt of Tyshawn Taylor and Collins were a combined zip-for-11 from 3-point range.
Collins, who came back for his senior year for a shot at a second national title, ended his career going 4-for-15 with five turnovers.
The Panthers now go to St. Louis where they’ve won the MVC title the last two years. To the Panthers, the Sweet 16 will just be another game.
But to the rest of America, Northern Iowa will never be just another team.
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
Bracket busters
No. 1 seeds have now lost in the second round six times since 2000. (No top seed has ever lost in the first round.) A look at those upsets, and how the team that advanced fared (seed in parentheses):
2000
(8) Wisconsin 66, (1) Arizona 59
Lost in Final Four after winning West
(8) N. Carolina 60, (1) Stanford 53
Lost in Final Four after winning South
2002
(8) UCLA 105, (1) Cincinnati 101, 2OT
Lost in West Regional semifinals
2004
(9) UAB 76, (1) Kentucky 75
Lost in St. Louis Regional semifinals
(8) Alabama 70, (1) Stanford 67
Lost in Phoenix Regional finals
