Denver and Minnesota are meant for each other. Nikola Jokic and Anthony Edwards might be meant to do this forever.

“We’re not ducking anybody,” Nuggets coach David Adelman said after a limited version of his team knocked off the Spurs, 128-118, to clinch the No. 3 seed in the NBA playoffs.

Easy to say now, certainly. But Denver had earned the right to talk by upending expectations with two short-handed wins in the final weekend of the regular season. One against Oklahoma City. One at San Antonio. The result is a third Nuggets vs. Timberwolves playoff series in four years. Call it a rubber match.

“We’ve played so many times over the years — playoffs, regular season,” Adelman said. “We know each other, with Tim (Connelly) over there and Chris Finch and Micah (Nori) and those guys. So we know it’s gonna be a battle. It always is with that team.”

The optics surrounding Denver’s decision to rest all five starters Friday and four of them Sunday were suspicious. Minnesota was locked as the No. 6 seed, waiting for the third-place finisher. Were the Nuggets running scared from their rivals? Were they still haunted by the image of Ant Man taunting fans on his way out of Ball Arena after a 20-point Game 7 comeback two years ago? Did they prefer the cushier first-round matchup against the Rockets?

“We won the game. So we didn’t mess with the game. Simple as that,” said backup center Jonas Valanciunas, who had warned on Friday that gaming the system is begging for bad karma. “We did everything. No matter who’s playing, we played hard. Coming out of timeouts, after the halftime, during the quarters, we played hard no matter what. And that’s our face. That’s our identity. That’s what we’re gonna do until the end of the season.”

Nuance in Nuggets’ playoff path

Two things can be true at once. It wasn’t lost on the Nuggets that they’re better equipped to contain Kevin Durant than most superstars (including Edwards), in part because KD is simply not looking to get around his defender and score at the rim as often as most primary shot creators. Edwards is young, spry and a certified blow-by threat in addition to his jump-shooting pedigree. Lump that in with the overexposure these teams have had to each other, and yes, the Timberwolves are probably a tougher matchup on paper.

And yet, as team sources detailed to The Denver Post in recent days, there was enough nuance to this whole playoff path debate — Minnesota then San Antonio? Houston then OKC? — that the arguments canceled each other out. Health was the one controllable variable that was unambiguous. A decision was reached with front office involvement and input from key players such as Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, a source told The Post: Injury avoidance mattered more than seeding.

That didn’t mean the people playing and coaching the games didn’t care about the results.

That much was clear from the enthusiasm on Denver’s bench Sunday, and from the effort put forth by Jokic. He was only on the court to meet a games-played quota so that he could appear on MVP and All-NBA ballots. But he turned the obligatory work trip into an aggressive display of offense, scoring 23 first-half points to the tune of “overrated” chants.

“I think he embraced it because how hard those guys were playing with him,” Adelman said. “And I think there’s a respect value there when he sees guys playing for opportunities. And a guy like him that’s done everything in this game, I think he respects that. And I heard the ‘overrated.’ I don’t know about the ‘overrated’ thing.”

The 65-game minimum wasn’t the only new-age NBA rule that Jokic was up against in San Antonio, it turns out. One of the lingering questions this weekend was why the Nuggets would rest Jokic on Friday but make him travel to Texas if the plan was for him to play only one of the last two games. After all, his fellow starters stayed home in Denver. Why not manage him in reverse? According to a source, it was largely because the Nuggets-Spurs game was flexed to a national broadcast (ESPN) earlier in the week, making Denver subject to a Player Participation Policy fine if both Jokic and Murray sat out.

The PPP stipulates that teams cannot rest multiple healthy star players in the same game, with stricter enforcement for nationally televised games. The Nuggets didn’t have to worry about that until recently, because a star player is defined by the rule as someone selected to an All-Star or All-NBA team in the last three years. Murray wasn’t either of those until February. Denver is finally a multi-star team.

If Jokic was already going to play 15 minutes this weekend to satisfy one rule, the Nuggets decided they might as well make sure they satisfy another.

They were also at least somewhat influenced, according to three sources, to choose the San Antonio game by the players opposite Jokic on Friday and Sunday. More specifically, Denver was wary of Lu Dort’s tendency to be involved in plays that result in opponents being injured. The Thunder wing was confronted by Jokic earlier this season after sticking out his hip and leg to trip the Nuggets center. Dort was ejected, and he said later that he apologized to Jokic. He was the only Oklahoma City starter who played Friday, and he earned boos from Denver when his forearm struck Nuggets wing David Roddy in the face during a rebound.

In San Antonio, Jokic was facing an old friend, ex-Nuggets center Mason Plumlee. Denver raced to a 23-point lead and never looked back. Except maybe six or seven times during the fourth quarter.

“We’re coming together. We’re playing great,” Bruce Brown said. “We’re getting stops. Main thing was our defense. Each game, we’re getting better and better.”

‘A little rivalry’ with Wolves

On the topic of Minnesota, Denver’s most relevant players who made the trip to San Antonio didn’t have many initial thoughts to share about the matchup. But Brown entertained this much: “I guess you could say it’s a little rivalry.”

“We’ll be a Tuesday start for prep,” Adelman said. “Tomorrow is a (day off) for players, but also for coaches. That allows us to get ourselves prepared, organize the first couple days of practice, and you kind of work your way off those practices. See what you’ve missed, what didn’t go well, fill in the blanks.”

If there’s one immediate and obvious advantage to facing the Timberwolves, it’s that Adelman already knows them like the back of his hand.

As for any perceived disadvantages? Now he can claim definitively that Denver isn’t and wasn’t scared.

Even if Connelly, Ant and the other Wolves choose to interpret the subtext of this past weekend as bulletin board material.

“You can’t duck opponents,” Adelman said. “And they didn’t want to duck us. We’re not ducking anybody. And everybody talks about the best matchup and all these things. You don’t know what’s gonna happen. And if you’re asking to play against Kevin Durant … what? So the opponent’s the opponent. And we have a ton of respect for them, as I know they do for us. It’s gonna be a hell of a series.”

They are officially set to face the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round of the NBA playoffs, a fate sealed by their 128-118 win over the Spurs on Sunday night. But it was how Denver (54-28) got to that endpoint that provided compelling theater throughout the last weekend of the regular season.

Riding a 10-game win streak Friday with a chance to close in on or clinch the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference, they surprised the NBA world by resting their entire starting lineup in what could’ve been a walkover against Oklahoma City’s reserves. Prioritizing health signaled a willingness to fall to the No. 4 seed and face Houston instead of Minnesota. It also meant Denver was content to land on the same side of the bracket as first-place OKC. The league was caught off-guard.

And so the projected final standings shifted to reflect the Nuggets’ decision to travel to San Antonio without four of those starters. Surely, they would lose Sunday and finish as the No. 4 seed.

People almost forgot about the fifth starter. Jokic was on that plane to Texas, bound for a 15-minute appearance to cement his eligibility for MVP and All-NBA voting. He was not to be denied. The superstar center and a ragtag supporting cast surged to a 23-point first-half lead on San Antonio. It was decided, then: Denver would finish third place after all, no matter how circuitously.

Naturally, another plot twist was in store. Nuggets coach David Adelman was transparent before opening tip: Jokic would play the first half to meet his games-played minimum (65), then Denver would evaluate its options. Translation: Jokic wasn’t going to play the second half. So it was up to Denver’s bench to protect the lead against the second-place Spurs, who were playing most of their normal rotation despite it being a meaningless game at the surface level.

Peel back the layers, and their motivations were obvious. They didn’t want Denver on their side of the playoff bracket. They wanted Jokic in the No. 4 slot to help their own path.

De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell and Dylan Harper played, even if Victor Wembanyama did not. They played past halftime, after Jokic’s night was over. The Spurs were on a mission. They sliced their deficit to six early in the fourth quarter. Maybe the Nuggets were in fact destined for the No. 4 seed.

But they had every answer for San Antonio. Jonas Valanciunas and David Roddy were physical forces. Julian Strawther and Bruce Brown and Curtis Jones got buckets. Brown was finishing out an Iron Man season with pride while the rest of Denver’s usual rotation was absent. He was the team’s only player to appear in all 82 games.

The Nuggets landed the last punch. They pushed the lead back to 16 late in the fourth, then held off a barrage of San Antonio 3s that rimmed out after it was cut back to single digits.

Are you not entertained?

Strawther led the team with 25 points. Valanciunas went for a 16-point, 11-rebound double-double.

The schedule for Denver’s first-round series has not yet been announced, but it will begin at Ball Arena.

The Nuggets technically needed a win or a Lakers loss to Utah on Sunday night to end up in the No. 3 seed. But the result between Los Angeles and Utah was a foregone conclusion, with the Jazz desperate to maximize its chances of keeping a top-eight protected lottery pick in the upcoming draft. (If the pick is ninth or later, it goes to Oklahoma City.) The Lakers were up by 30 by the fourth.

So if the Nuggets had lost, they would have finished in fourth place with Houston as a first-round opponent.

“Every year, you kind of look back at the PR people, ask where people are in their games,” Adelman said. “… Absolutely, we’ll try to figure out what’s going on.”

Jokic finished his night with 23 points and eight rebounds in 18 minutes. He finished his 2025-26 campaign with averages of 27.7 points, 12.9 rebounds and 10.7 assists per game. He has averaged a triple-double in two consecutive seasons.

The Nuggets will go into the playoffs on a 12-game win streak, the longest of Jokic’s career. Their final win total of 54 eclipses that of the 2022-23 team that won the NBA championship.

In this corner: the first-place Oklahoma City Thunder, resting nine rotation players including the reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Defensive Player of the Year candidate Chet Holmgren and 2025 All-NBA wing Jalen Williams. Their absences came as no surprise. With two games left, the Thunder had already clinched the best record in the league and home-court advantage in any playoff series. There was nothing left to play for — all risk, no reward. In fact, OKC was incentivized to lose to the Nuggets and shepherd them to the opposite side of the playoff bracket as a No. 3 seed. That way, the defending champs would only have to face one of the Nuggets or Spurs in a hypothetical path to the NBA Finals.

In the other corner: third-place Denver, minus the entire starting lineup. Offered a symbolic handshake agreement by OKC avoid each other until the Western Conference Finals, the Nuggets threw a late-breaking curveball instead. Most of their normal rotation would also be sitting out, coach David Adelman announced 90 minutes before tip.

The official injury report designations: Nikola Jokic out for right wrist injury management. Jamal Murray out for right shoulder impingement. Aaron Gordon out for right hamstring injury management. Cam Johnson out for right ankle injury management. Christian Braun out for left ankle injury management and a right hip flexor strain.

“What’s on the injury report is what they’re out with,” Adelman said. “They’re dealing with a lot more than that physically, not to mention some of the soft tissue stuff. Scary kinds of injuries. … ‘Hey, we’re the three-seed, but we don’t have three starters’ — it doesn’t sound like a great solution.”

Denver’s junior-varsity roster pulled away late for a 127-107 victory nonetheless, clinching home-court advantage in the first round. Oklahoma City escaped with the outcome it wanted. But the Nuggets’ unexpected lineup decision will loom into Sunday evening, when they close out the regular season at San Antonio.

Their situation is simple now.

The Nuggets will be the No. 3 seed and face Minnesota if they beat San Antonio or if the Lakers lose to Utah in a coinciding game. San Antonio would be Denver’s likely second-round opponent.

The Nuggets will be the No. 4 seed and face Houston if they lose to San Antonio and the Lakers beat Utah. Oklahoma City would be Denver’s likely second-round opponent.

Utah will be trying to lose Sunday for draft lottery purposes. The Lakers will be heavily favored, even without Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves.

That leaves Denver at San Antonio as the major swing game of the night for seeding.

So what exactly do the Nuggets want here? Their decision to rest all five starters Friday signaled a desire to avoid Minnesota, fall to fourth place and set up an earlier OKC series, leaving people around the NBA puzzled. But the situation is at least nuanced enough that it depends who you ask. Several team sources told The Denver Post they would personally prefer to compete for the No. 3 seed. Others were torn on which potential path would be more advantageous between Minnesota-San Antonio and Houston-Oklahoma City. Ultimately, the lineup conversation Friday went upstairs beyond the coaching staff, according to two of those sources.

“The matchups with those teams, I’ll be honest, there’s so much unknown. I think people need to calm down with ‘Let’s play the Lakers,'” Nuggets head coach David Adelman said, before Los Angeles was mathematically ruled out as a possible first-round opponent late Friday night. “If Luka comes back and feels good, do you want to play Luka Doncic? Like, I think you’re messing with the game when you think that.

“Us and Minnesota, it’s been a crazy back-and-forth over the years. They swept us last year, but then we beat them three out of four this year. We always know it’s competitive with them. They’ve given us issues. We’ve given them issues. And then obviously Houston, I mean, they’re playing so well right now. … So there’s no good opponent in my opinion. I think you just have to play it out with decisions that are best for your team, and we feel like tonight, this is the best decision.”

The Nuggets have had internal conversations about the matchup scenarios, of course. That����ap normal for a contender in a situation like this.

Those conversations, if you’re to believe the team’s framing, revealed a lot of gray area. And in fairness to that framing, any two Nuggets fans sitting in a bar could have a reasonable pros-and-cons debate about this topic.

Is Houston a more palatable matchup than a familiar rival like Minnesota in the first round? Maybe, but Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels have also been dealing with injuries recently. Vibes have been off with the Wolves.

If Oklahoma City is considered a tougher opponent than the inexperienced Spurs, wouldn’t it be prudent to land on San Antonio’s side of the bracket and stay away from OKC as long as possible? Maybe, but on the other hand, playing the Thunder sooner — with fewer miles on Aaron Gordon’s hamstring in particular — theoretically gives you a better chance of starting and finishing that series with a healthy team.

Or does it even matter when you play OKC and when you play San Antonio, if you’re expecting you’ll have to face both eventually anyway? Does that mean decisions should be made with only the first-round opponent in mind? Or if you’re a “championship or bust” team, as Julian Strawther put it Friday, shouldn’t you be confident you’ll win the first-round series regardless of the opponent and therefore make these decisions based on later rounds?

There isn’t necessarily a right answer to any of these questions.

Only one variable was completely unambiguous: Nothing else matters if the roster isn’t healthy. So injury avoidance was treated as a higher priority than seeding, as multiple team sources rationalized to The Post.

Still, Denver’s willingness to risk losing Friday’s game on paper — forget for a moment that the players refused to punt it in actuality — suggested at least some degree of organizational wariness about the Timberwolves, even if nobody wanted to admit it. Denver has already faced them twice in the last three postseasons. Minnesota has gone farther in the playoffs than Denver in back-to-back years.

Assuming the Nuggets rest most of their starters again on Sunday, that outside perception will only be amplified.

Adding to the intrigue, San Antonio is now incentivized to beat the Nuggets for the same reason Oklahoma City was incentivized to lose to them. If Denver falls to fourth place, the Spurs will ensure that they only have to play one of Denver or OKC in the playoffs. Is that a worthwhile reason for them to play their starters when they’re already locked in as the No. 2 seed? Even if Victor Wembanyama rests, which seems likely, San Antonio can roll out a  competitive lineup spearheaded by one of the best backcourts in the league.

Then there’s Jokic, who still hasn’t met the 65-game minimum to qualify for awards such as MVP and All-NBA. He has to play at least 15 minutes Sunday if he wants to appear on ballots. He’s expected to play, one team source said, but the final decision on his status will include input from both him and team ownership.

“Obviously, the success in the playoffs matters more than anything else. But this rule stares at us right now,” Adelman said. “So we’ve gotta make a proper decision, and we need to go in there with a real plan. … Either it is those minutes, or we say let’s just move on.”

Of course, if Jokic does play even 15 minutes, the Nuggets will be substantially increasing their chances of leaving San Antonio with a win. And that might not be what everyone in the building wants.

The former Colorado State Ram was selected by the Kings with the 24th overall pick in the NBA draft Wednesday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. Sacramento moved into the No. 24 slot via a trade with the champion Oklahoma City Thunder.

For Clifford, it was the realization of a lifelong dream when his named was called by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.

The Colorado native, who went to high school at Class 3A The Vanguard School in Colorado Springs, spent three seasons with the Colorado Buffaloes before landing at CSU for his final two years of eligibility. In three seasons at CU, he played in 82 games and averaged 5.4 points and 3.6 rebounds per game.

He flourished in Fort Collins, and his draft stock skyrocketed after he averaged 18.9 points, 9.6 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 1.2 steals per game in his final season with the Rams. In three games at the Mountain West Conference tournament, he averaged 25 points, 10.3 rebounds and 4.3 assists as CSU won the tournament and he was named MVP.

After his first season at CSU, he tested the NBA draft waters but opted to return and used his fifth year establish himself as a first-round pick.

Wednesday night, his name was called, and now the next leg of his journey will begin in Sacramento.

Clifford is the second CSU Ram to be drafted in the first round in the past four years. David Roddy was selected with the 23rd pick in the 2022 draft. Prior to Roddy, CSU’s last first-round draft pick was Jason Smith, who was selected 20th overall in 2007.

“We need big-time, we need Boise State from you tomorrow,” Evans, the CSU Rams’ absolute revelation at guard, said to Nique Clifford, clutching his old teammate quickly before leaving the floor at Moby Arena.

“Boise State?” I asked Clifford.

“Yeah, we’ve got a team deal in Denver (on Saturday),” the ex-Rams men’s basketball standout and future NBA Draft pick explained.

“So what would you tell them tomorrow if they ask about, say, the transfer portal?” I wondered.

Clifford smiled. Knowingly. Been there. Nailed that.

“(Returning players) have asked me for advice,” Clifford told me Friday after his mentor, Ali Farokhmanesh, was introduced as CSU’s new men’s basketball coach. “I just tell them, ‘Stick with what you know. You’re going to be in a good situation (here). It’s not worth going into the portal and chasing a bag, and it’s a long-term investment.’

“That’s how I look at it, rather than just the short-term (of), ‘Go get it. Get some money real quick,’ and end up in a bad situation.”

Farokhmanesh nailed his introductory news conference at Moby from way downtown, firing daggers with the same bravado that he did as a fearless, smallish Northern Iowa guard against Kansas in the NCAA Tournament 15 years ago.

Time flies when you’re having fun. CSU athletic director John Weber landed the right guy while also taking an Olympic leap of faith in the same breath. CSU is 15 months away from the Pac-12, where playing, say, Gonzaga, home-and-away, goes from delectable concept to brutal reality.

Farokhmanesh has excelled on college basketball’s biggest stages — first as a player, then with every hat he’s worn since as an assistant coach from Nebraska to Drake to CSU. But he’s also never done this before, and the Rams are a moving train with NCAA tourney expectations that

Fort Fun is Fort Farokhmanesh now, with a community that’s fallen in love with its favorite former associate head coach and vice versa. Coach Ali is the anecdote king, publicly and privately, and his recollection of a pack of seven or so locals earlier this week coming up to his minivan as he was parking it, only to clap and cheer him as he got out of the thing, sounds very on-brand.

Farokhmanesh is a people person, first and foremost. If you don’t like him, it’s because you haven’t met him. Or because you’re a Jayhawks fan,

That said, college basketball has always been a game where nice guys historically finish last. The Minnesota Golden Gophers, Niko Medved’s new team, need all the help — and bodies — they can snap up in a Big Ten that eats its own.

Ali’s first big challenge is keeping as much of this roster as he can in green and gold before the sexy parts get picked clean. Starting with Evans, who averaged 10.6 points and 3.1 assists per game and morphed into Steph Curry Lite after Christmas.

“It’s not a re-recruitment, it’s just a different conversation at the end,” Farokhmanesh told me. “And in today’s age, (where) everyone is a free agent, I don’t know if you’re ever going to be able to say, ‘Oh yeah, we’re bringing everybody back’. That’s just, that’s the reality of the situation. I mean, look at San Diego State, look at some of these other programs that I know do it the right way, (where) kids are deciding to leave from — and that’s very unique to this day and age. You hope for the best …

“You just do what you can to make them feel wanted, to make them feel valued, and to help them reach their dreams. And I think that’s all you can do. And if they stay, if they don’t stay — that’s not my decision at the end. You’ve got to leave it up to them, too.”

On one hand, seeing potential returnees such as , Nikola Djapa, Kyle Jorgensen and Evans turn up for Coach Ali’s first presser was probably a good sign if you’re Stalwart at heart.

On the other hand, money talks. Evans and current CSU players weren’t made available to attending media Friday. Former Rams were, though. And they could see the band sticking together for at least one more ride.

“I hope that people get to realize who (Farokhmanesh) is as a recruiter and as a person,” Jalen Lake said. “He mentioned Isaiah Stevens and David Roddy, and everybody (who decided to) stick around — I think people are going to do the same right now.”

“Including Evans?”

“I don’t know,” Lake said. “I hope so.”

Denver awaits on Saturday. If Clifford knows what’s coming after that, he’s keeping it under his hat.

“(Kyan) has been asking me for some advice, just giving him some guidance, but I’m excited for him,” Clifford said. “Of course, a lot of people are going to want (him), but I think he’s got a good head on his shoulders. He got a good support system, and so he’s going to be perfectly fine.”

College hoops was once loaded with great wits, and ex-Purdue great Gene Keady, whose coaching tree still bears fruit, was one of the greatest. Keady quipped once that “recruiting is like shaving. If you skip a day, you look like a bum.”

To that end, Farokhmanesh made it a point about 14 minutes into his first head-coaching news conference to have the ’24-25 Rams who were on hand rise for a standing ovation.

As Evans and the others sat back down, a cry came out from the back of the peanut gallery.

“Don’t let ’em leave!” someone shouted.

Coach Ali smiled.

“The hard questions were supposed to be for later,” Farokhmanesh replied.

The crowd laughed at that one. But the hard work, the real work, starts now.

All the Rams had to do was look one seat over.

Former assistant Ali Farokhmanesh was named the 21st head coach in Rams men’s basketball history by the university late Wednesday afternoon. He replaces Medved after he left to coach his alma mater, Minnesota, earlier this week.

Farokhmanesh, 36, agreed to a five-year contract through June 2030 worth $4.5 million in base pay, according to terms provided by the university.

“I am thrilled that Ali will continue leading our men’s basketball program, now as head coach,” CSU athletic director John Weber was quoted in a news release announcing the hire.

“Ali has a relentless attitude that he attacks each day with, which was important to us as we looked for the next leader of our men’s basketball program. There has been significant interest in the head coach position at Colorado State. After an extremely comprehensive and competitive national search, Ali’s continued leadership of this program is important and really excites me.”

Farokhmanesh spent the last eight years serving as an assistant under Medved, first at Drake from 2017-18 and then with CSU starting in 2018. Over that time, the Rams rose from the depths of the end of the Larry Eustachy era to reach the NCAA Tournament three times in the last four seasons. That culminated with a Mountain West Tournament championship earlier this month — the program’s first in 22 years — and a first-round upset of Memphis in the NCAA tourney.

Medved announced on Monday that he was leaving Fort Collins for his hometown school — a day after CSU fell a Maryland buzzer-beater short of the Sweet 16.

But, Farokhmanesh will not be following him this time.

“I want to thank President Amy Parsons, John Weber, Scott Sidwell, and Christina Diaz for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to be the head coach at Colorado State,” Farokhmanesh was quoted in the release. “Serving under Coach Medved has been a privilege, and I will forever be grateful to him for bringing me to Fort Collins. This university and state are special because of the great people. I am grateful for all who have been so welcoming and supportive of me and my family during our time here and look forward to continuing to grow those bonds in our community. I can’t wait to continue to build off the championship foundation our players have established and push it to greater heights.”

The former Northern Iowa star is best known for sinking No. 1 seed Kansas in the second round of the 2010 NCAA Tournament with an audacious 3-pointer. The shot followed a game-winning 3 that eliminated UNLV just two days earlier.

More recently, he has made a name for himself as a skilled developer of talent, credited with helping push David Roddy, Isaiah Stevens and Nique Clifford to new heights.

Roddy parlayed that into a first-round selection in the 2023 NBA draft. Stevens currently plays the Miami Heat’s G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce, after a record-breaking Rams career. And Clifford is expected to be chosen in this June’s NBA draft after an All-Mountain West Conference campaign that saw him average 18.9 points, 9.6 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game on 49.6% shooting.

Farokhmanesh’s hire offers CSU stability after an unprecedented run of success that’s included three 25-plus-win seasons in four years, two NCAA Tournament wins and a 143-85 record since Medved arrived on the Front Range seven years ago.

With the transfer portal opening up earlier this week, Farokhmanesh’s first goal will be to retain some of the talent that helped make that happen.

“We have something special happening on the court in Moby Arena, and Ali has been an integral part of building the CSU men’s basketball program into the nationally prominent force that it is today,” Parsons was quoted in the release. “That momentum and energy will only continue to grow as he steps into the head coach role. I know Ali is committed to CSU, our student-athletes, our fans and the entire Ram Community in the pursuit of excellence on and off the court.”

The longtime CSU assistant, who served as the Rams’ associate head coach is slated to earn $800,000 in base pay in ’25-26; $850,000 in ’26-27; $900,000 in ’27-28; $950,000 in ’28-29; and $1 million in ’29-30.

The contract includes several incentives, including payments for finishing with 20-plus Division I wins ($25,000), finishing 50th or better in the NCAA NET rankings ($50,000), winning regular season or conference tournament championships ($75,000), qualifying for the NCAA Tournament ($75,000), and a team cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better in an academic year ($25,000).

In addition, he would receive bonuses for NCAA Tournament wins in the Round of 64 or prior ($50,000), advancing to the Round of 32 ($75,000), advancing to the Sweet 16 ($100,000), advancing to the Elite 8 ($100,000), advancing to the Final Four ($150,000) and winning a national title ($100,000).

If Farokhmanesh remains as CSU’s coach through May 1, 2028, he’ll receive a retention bonus of $100,000.

CSU will provide Farokhmanesh a pool of $1.2 million for assistant coaches and support staff.

Should the new Rams coach seek to terminate the contract early, as with Medved, he would owe 33% of the remaining money left to pay on the contract. If CSU were to seek to terminate the deal early without “just cause,” the school would pay 75% of the remaining money owed.

An introductory news conference open to the public will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at Moby Arena.

When Clifford hit the transfer portal after leaving CU, Farokmanesh, the CSU Rams assistant who’d recruited Nique when the kid was a springy teen out of the Springs, reached out instantly for a second chance.

After Nique eventually chose CSU, it was who helped break down No. 10’s jumper and rebuild it from the ground up.

“Power in your feet,” Farokhmanesh would remind Clifford at practice. “No swimming.”

As a Buff, Nique was a 33.8% shooter on 3s and 60.6% converter of free throws. An electric driver/dunker/slasher, he was painfully erratic from about 10 feet out and beyond.

As a Ram, Clifford became a 37.7% shooter from beyond the arc and drained 77.1 from the stripe. , his aim was true. CSU Nique was a three-level scorer, one of the best players dancing in the NCAA Tournament and a surefire top 20-25-ish selection in this summer’s NBA draft.

“I feel like what changed even more was, I was more intentional about what I was doing,” Clifford told me after practice earlier this month. “I’m imagining what’s going to happen in the game — I’m seeing a (defense) double-teaming me and I know which read to make, the type of shots that I’m going to get. It’s not just getting in the gym, shooting a ton of shots. It’s being just more intentional and focused.”

“Where did that come from?” I asked.

“I learned that from Coach Ali,” Clifford replied. “He helped me a lot with that. Because he made a few big shots.”

A few, yeah. You know what’s funny? How often you’d hear the same thanks, the same sentiment, unprompted, from CSU players. Clifford. Isaiah Stevens. David Roddy. Just about everybody who made you #ProudToBe in Moby over the last four or five years would drop Coach Ali’s name, to either praise him or point out how he made them better.

Don’t overthink this one, John Weber. No need to wait around, either.

The best choice to replace former CSU men’s basketball coach Niko Medved is the guy who usually sat just to Medved’s right on the home bench at Moby Arena. The guy scribbling furiously. The guy who sometimes had a pen cap in his mouth. The guy whose last name still

Because if you don’t hand the baton to Farokhmanesh, some other athletic director will.

On one hand, Medved’s seven-year tenure set, then raised, the bar. On the other, Weber’s got arguably the simplest college basketball search in history on his hands.

Who needs to hire a search firm when the perfect candidates for this gig are either Farokmanesh, CSU’s 36-year-old associate-turned-interim coach, or Steve Smiley over at UNC, just 30 miles up the road?

The latter’s been quietly making a heck of a case for a step up, too. . As the Bears’ boss since 2020, he recruited and developed Dalton Knecht, a classic late-bloomer, and held up the standard put down by Jeff Lindner when the latter left to take the Wyoming job five years ago.

Smiley’s not Tad Boyle. But his resume features a lot of Boyle-esque data points — a local star who played at Pomona High, who won at UNC (89-71 career mark), a good dude with great local pipelines who could hit the ground running.

There’s no real wrong answer, and whichever one of the two doesn’t land in FoCo will get tapped for a better gig than the one they’ve currently got soon enough.

If I’m Weber, though, I’d give Farokhmanesh an edge on two fronts. First, a better track record of recruiting wins — Stevens, Clifford, four-star forward Jaden Steppe, over, say, Knecht. And the second would be continuity. Medved will want to take anything good that isn’t nailed down with him to Minnesota, same as any other coach who’s jumping up a level. Ali gives CSU a fighting shot to keep whatever they’ve already got and stack on top of it. With Smiley, some of this current core could very well scatter — to Minneapolis and parts unknown.

It would likely be an easier transition to Farokhmanesh, who flourished as Medved’s bag man and fixed more foundations than . Coach Ali turned Clifford around. He helped transform Roddy into a “stretch 4” at the next level. He made Stevens a more consistent shooter and a stronger, more assured finisher in the paint.

“In the summertime, we would compete to see who would get the most makes in over two-and-a-half months,” Stevens, the all-time leading scorer in CSU history, recalled to me recently. “We’d keep a tally in the locker room. We had a leaderboard (hung up), and me and Nique were competing at the top of it.”

Stevens wound up with the crown, holding off an improving Clifford down the stretch.

“It was really close,” Stevens continued. “And then they gave us some shirts (for winning). It was a big thing for guys to get some of these t-shirts. It said on the back, ‘Green Light Shooting Champion Of The Summer.'”

“Who made the shirts?” I wondered. “Whose idea was this?”

Stevens laughed.

“Coach Ali made them,” he replied.

Such an easy call. The easiest.

BLOOP!

Somebody needs to hit a shot.

BLOOP!

We gotta hunker down or this game could get outta hand.

BLOOP!

Yesssssssssssss!

“It’s really fun,” Stevens, the CSU Rams’ all-time leading scorer and told me Saturday by phone, the morning after he dropped a double-double (11 points, 10 assists) on the South Bay Lukas — er, Lakers.

“All the former (CSU) players, we were all in this group chat (Friday), just talking about different schemes and what we were seeing. I’m glad these guys are on a run. It’s definitely been fun to watch.”

Stevens, the floor general who wrapped a stellar Rams tenure in March 2024 after 2,350 points (tops on the program’s all-time charts) and 863 assists (also tops), talks about this CSU team with the giddy air of a proud uncle. The greatest point guard in Rams history steered the green and gold to a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances (’22 and ’24) and a demolition of Virginia in the First Four.

But neither he nor his old teammate Roddy, now with the Rockets’ G League affiliate in Rio Grande, Texas, ever played in the Big Dance’s second round with the Rammies, which his old school will do Sunday afternoon against fifth-seeded Maryland. And Zay never drained six 3-pointers in the Big Dance the way Evans did against Memphis in the first round.

“We were opposite teams all the time (last year) in 5-on-5s,” recalled Stevens, who helped to groom Evans as his understudy when the latter was a freshman during the ’23-24 campaign. “One thing about the team last year was, we were super-competitive. So, people would get into it all the time, just talking back and forth and (being) physical.

“Not once did he ever flinch. Whether it was me or Josiah Strong or Patrick Cartier — (Evans) didn’t back down from anybody.

“He always stood (his ground), and was willing to compete. And I appreciated that. As an older player, I’d think, ‘He’s going to be all right.'”

As much as Nique Clifford has elevated the Rams — and his NBA stock — since Thanksgiving, it was when Evans got hot that CSU really took flight. The lithe, 6-foot sophomore out of Kansas City, Mo., misfired on 17 of his first 21 attempts from beyond the arc this season, averaging just 7.9 points per game through late December while the Rammies sputtered to a 5-5 start.

New year? New Kyan. Since Jan. 1, Evans is averaging 12.4 points per tilt and draining treys at a sizzling 49.5% clip. Since the second week of February, CSU has gone 10-1 whenever the K.C. native’s connected on multiple 3-pointers in a game.

“Hopefully, this is going to be the new normal (for him),” Stevens said. “The passing, the shooting, the leadership … hopefully, this is something he’s going to continue.”

Because on paper, the Terrapins (26-8) are a step up in class, defensively, from Penny Hardaway’s Tigers. Maryland headed into the weekend ranked among the top 40 teams in the nation in lowest opponent shooting percentage (30th), lowest opponent 3-point shooting percentage (20th), opponent shots blocked (37th) and turnovers forced (31st) per game.

“I haven’t seen a lot of (the Terps). I watched them (Friday night),” Stevens said. “They looked like they like to get up and down and run. And they’ve got that freshman (center Derik Queen) who’s going to be a top 10 (draft) pick, so we’re definitely going to have our work cut out for us.

“But I believe in this staff. We’re going to scheme some things. Whether we execute it to the best of our ability, we’re going to have a plan in place to go out there and compete. I think our guys have a lot of confidence right now, which also plays a factor at this tournament, (the) buy-in to what we’re doing, the proof is in the pudding at this point. I hope they can just continue to play like there’s no pressure.”

Like all great floor generals, Stevens is a chess player by trade and a control freak by habit. Which means he’s still getting used to watching epic, historic CSU hoops moments from a distance.

“I take a lot of pride in what we did there,” Stevens said. “And a lot of pride in just the school in general, because I was able to go there and really change my life because of it.

“I wasn’t expecting to play in the NBA and now, all of a sudden, I was able to go (to the league) and play and am in a position where my life is going to look different for some time now.”

BLOOP!

Need a stop.

BLOOP!

Let’s goooooooooo!

“I owe CSU a lot,” Stevens continued. “Coach Niko (Medved) took a chance on me. (Assistant) coach Ali (Farokhmanesh) walked into a high-school gym to look at somebody else, I had a solid day, and the rest is history. I definitely take a lot of ownership and a lot of pride in it. It’s fun to be a fan now.”

Two days after falling to New Mexico in the semifinals of the Mountain West Conference tournament, the Rams are headed to Dayton and the First Four. The 10th-seeded Rams will take on fellow No. 10 seed Virginia on Tuesday night for the right to face No. 7 seed Texas in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday in the Midwest region of the men’s basketball bracket.

The Rams were listed as the last team in the bracket by the tournament selection committee, two spots behind Colorado, which will also be in Dayton to face Boise State as part of the First Four. It was a curious placement given that the Rams actually beat the Buffs earlier this season in Fort Collins.

This will be the Rams’ second trip to the Big Dance in six seasons under head coach Niko Medved, who is now 190-116 during his time in FoCo, and first appearance in the First Four.

Medved’s first tourney trip with the Rams, in 2022, ended after just one game with a loss to No. 11 seed Michigan in the opening round. The Wolverines advanced to the Sweet 16, while the Rams lost David Roddy to the NBA draft.

Senior point guard Isaiah Stevens and junior guard Jalen Lake were both a part of that squad. Now they will get a chance to deliver the program’s first NCAA Tournament win since 2013 under Medved’s predecessor, Larry Eustachy.

CSU (24-10, 10-8 MW) had an impressive run through its nonconference schedule, scoring wins over Boston College, Creighton, Colorado and Washington as part of a 12-1 start to the season.

The Rams lost four of five near the end of the regular season to fall into a tied for sixth in a deep Mountain West, then won a pair of games at the conference tournament before falling to the Lobos in the semis. New Mexico went on to win the tournament to earn the conference’s automatic bid into the tourney.

A total of six Mountain West teams are in the NCAA Tournament bracket.

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Thank you, kickball.

Yes, kickball. A bunch of college dudes and their coaches giggling on a softball field, this past Sunday, basking in a warm January FoCo sun, playing like fifth-graders again, remembering what unabashed joy felt like.

“We got rid of (our last game),” Clifford explained after dropping 20 points in a 79-71 win over bruising San Diego State at Moby Arena. “We went and played kickball, we did some different things  just to get our minds right, have some fun. And I think that helped us and brought us closer together.”

If there was ever a moment and a team that required flushing, it was the 72 hours prior to tip Tuesday and 16-5 Rams.

After a soul-killing, fan-murdering loss at woebegone Wyoming this past weekend, social media declared them dead. Finito. Toast. Some FoCo faithful even started calling for heads to roll while whispering the winter’s dirtiest 3-letter word: N-I-T.

“You don’t go in and try to shame these (players) for what they did (at Wyoming),” Medved explained after his guys took their miseries out on the 16-5 Aztecs. “They know.

“I just decided (on Sunday), ‘We’re not going to spend one minute getting ready for SDSU. It’s 60 degrees outside in Fort Collins, let’s go out and play some kickball.'”

Flushing accomplished.

Team Roadkill went out Tuesday outscored one of the most physical teams in the country in the paint, 30-22. They won the fast-break point count by a margin of 18-12. They turned it over just 10 times.

NIT?

Are the Rammies flawed, despite their resume? Heck, yeah. CSU still feels like a David Roddy team without a David Roddy up front, one scoring big man shy of a Sweet 16. Which isn’t fair, but that’s the bar.

And is it cool to worry about how this team closes? Absolutely. The Rammies made just six of their final 10 free-throw attempts Tuesday within friendly confines, which is the kind of math that can end a trip to Bracketville before it ever gets started.

“(That’s) good of a win as we’ve had,” Medved reflected. “Just couldn’t be prouder of this group of young men.”

And with good reason. Because as long as the zebras are letting the Aztecs get handsy, they know there’s a path back, one poke at a time.

SDSU star Jaedon LeDee got free for a layup off a steal and a runout that got SDSU to within 60-59 with 8:10 left in the game. Next time down the floor, Aztecs defender Elijah Saunders let his fingers to the talking on Clifford, launching another break the other way and a Lamont Butler jumper at the 7:29 mark that put SDSU up one against the run of play, 61-60.

Medved called timeout to stem the bleeding, and it worked like a dream. CSU came out of the huddle on a 9-0 run of its own, punctuated by Clifford’s Clyde-Drexler-esque one-handed slam with 6:45 to go, pushing the hosts up 64-61.

Sometimes, it takes a village. Especially defensively. Lee, who went into Tuesday averaging 20.9 points and 8.7 boards, missed three of his first four from the floor, had netted just two points at the halftime break and seven points with 12 minutes to go in the contest, finishing with 13 on the night.

Funny, isn’t it? SDSU brought out by CSU’s best by bringing their usual worst to the party. The Aztecs have two modes: Rock fight and WrestleMania. To ex-coaches, SDSU’s style is personified and complemented for its trademark “active hands.” To the beholder, it looks like a bunch of slap-happy buggers trying to work the refs and confuse the electorate by bumping, jostling and contesting every catch. To each their elbows.

Yet it was the hosts who got the knives out early, poking away a pair of steals in the game’s opening six possessions. The first four minutes played out like a particularly one-sided stretch with the Rams swinging forearms on the defensive end while knocking down triple after triple at the other.

Back-to-back treys from Clifford and Isaiah Stevens (20 points) got a packed Moby bumping as the hosts ran to a 13-2 lead at the start, extending it to 17-4 before Aztecs coach Brian Dutcher called a time to try and calm the din.

SDSU cranked up the fourth-degree assaults while turning shoves and stops into Reese Waters jumpers the other way. The USC transfer’s rainbow in transition with 8:08 left until halftime capped a 10-0 SDSU run that cut the Rammies cushion to 21-17.

While the locals celebrated supersub Joe Palmer’s birthday by wearing giveaway replica versions of his trademark headband, Clifford got rolling again. The former Buffs’ steal and layup capping a 12-3 Rammies run the other way as the hosts went into the under-4 timeout back up double digits, 35-23.

The best weapon against Bluto Ball is to keep your head, box out, avoid getting baited and let The Undertaker methodically brick himself into an early grave.

The Rammies at the break forced eight Aztecs turnovers while committing only four themselves, outscoring the bigger guests 8-6 in the paint and 7-0 on second-chance opportunities.

That travels, especially in the Big Dance. Which only makes that one-in-a-million meltdown in Pokes Country this past weekend all the more confounding.

“Life is 10% what happens to you,” Medved mused, “and 90% how you react to it.”

This roadkill’s still dancing. At times, these Rams are going to be hard on the eyes, granted, even while Stevens and Clifford, The Clutch Brothers, get busy untying the knots in your stomach. When it comes to March bona fides, always trust your gut.

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