It's March 20, 2010. We're watching the first round of the NCAA tournament and uhhhhhhh ... what is going on? Why is the number 1 overall seed, Kansas, losing to the University of Northern Iowa? And now that UNI has the ball ... why does this kid look like he's about to shoot it?
Well, to understand all of that, you need to understand some history. We need to talk about how mighty this rebuilt Kansas team is. Possibly even better than the 2008 NCAA champions. We need to talk about how they match up with these UNI Panthers, and how a Kansas player getting hurt may have actually saved the Jayhawks. And of course we need to talk about that player with the ball. His name is Ali Farokhmanesh, and he took a long and winding road to get to this moment, the biggest moment of his career.
We need to rewind.
Well, to understand all of that, you need to understand some history. We need to talk about how mighty this rebuilt Kansas team is. Possibly even better than the 2008 NCAA champions. We need to talk about how they match up with these UNI Panthers, and how a Kansas player getting hurt may have actually saved the Jayhawks. And of course we need to talk about that player with the ball. His name is Ali Farokhmanesh, and he took a long and winding road to get to this moment, the biggest moment of his career.
We need to rewind.
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00:00It's March 20th, 2010.
00:02We're in Oklahoma City for the second round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament,
00:06and, uh, what is going on here?
00:10As the clock ticks below 40 seconds, tournament favorite Kansas
00:14is down one point against the nine-seed University of Northern Iowa.
00:19Not even regular Iowa.
00:21UNI has the ball, and, like, where is everyone?
00:25This is all mystifying.
00:26We need to rewind.
00:30This video is presented by Sam Adams American Light, the most premium light beer.
00:36Upsets are in the air this weekend.
00:39Already today, number 10 St. Mary's took down two-seeded Villanova,
00:43and 11-seed Washington is crushing three-seed New Mexico.
00:47But if this score holds, that would be something else entirely, upset-wise.
00:52This number one understates just how favored Kansas was tonight and in this whole tournament.
00:59Kansas won it all just two years ago.
01:02They sent a huge chunk of that team to the 08 NBA draft,
01:06which left the Jayhawks in a bit of a rebuilding spot last season.
01:09Kansas got upset in the Big 12 Conference Tournament
01:12and fell well short of defending their national title.
01:15The rebuilding gap year paid off, though, because good lord are they stacked now.
01:21At least two Jayhawks, Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich,
01:24could have been NBA draft picks last summer,
01:26but both decided to come back to school.
01:29Kansas retained some terrific rising sophomores,
01:32Tyshawn Taylor and the Mars Twins, Markeith and Marcus.
01:36And they added multiple top recruits while a promising transfer became eligible.
01:41This is a ridiculously talented basketball team,
01:44now and for the foreseeable future, right up there with the 08 champions.
01:48And all the preseason discourse reflected that.
01:51Kansas received a near-unanimous number one ranking.
01:54They were the team to beat, according to ESPN.
01:58A few months later, with a 32-2 record and breezy conference tournament win in their wake,
02:04the Jayhawks earned the number one overall seed in March Madness.
02:08Betting odds painted them as the clear favorite to win it all again.
02:12They remain the team to beat.
02:14And, uh, well, they look like a team very much at risk of getting beat right now.
02:21Actually, the fact that they're only down one point
02:24represents a massive momentum shift toward Kansas.
02:28Understanding that shift will help us understand
02:30why it looks like there's no one on the court right now.
02:33Wind the tape back a few frames and you'll see Kansas
02:37very nearly stealing this pass with super aggressive backcourt defense.
02:42That is a recent development and a twist away from this game's original story.
02:47To the extent that anyone bothered to scout the University of Northern Iowa
02:53before this tournament, here's what they found.
02:55Head coach Ben Jacobson runs a very slow, very scripted offense.
03:00Often, that offense funnels toward the middle.
03:037'1", 280-pound, all-conference center Jordan Eggleseder.
03:08Big ol' Iowan fella.
03:10Eggleseder's prominence gave this game against Kansas an obvious headline matchup.
03:14The battle of the bigs.
03:16Eggleseder vs. All-American Kansas center Cole Aldrich.
03:19Those two actually faced off years ago, though only one of them claims to remember it.
03:24Anyway, that matchup defined the first half, in favor of UNI.
03:29Aldrich was the only thing Kansas had going offensively,
03:32as the Jayhawk guards struggled severely against a UNI defense packing the paint.
03:38Eggleseder surprised the Jayhawks by stepping out and hitting a couple threes.
03:42Northern Iowa led by 8 at half and held their ground to open this second half.
03:47But then, a fascinating turn of events.
03:51With like 9 minutes to go and Kansas still down 9 points,
03:56Aldrich went up for a rebound and came down awkwardly.
03:59You could hear his pained holler on the broadcast.
04:05Aldrich had to sit, Kansas had to play small,
04:08and UNI felt compelled to bench Eggleseder in response.
04:12Except for a very brief stretch of Aldrich testing his injured foot,
04:16the star centers have sat almost the entire last 9 minutes,
04:20totally shifting the style of play.
04:23Kansas had already begun a desperate full court press before Aldrich got hurt,
04:27but once he sat, they really ramped it up.
04:30Almost immediately, Kansas went on a run,
04:33forcing tons of panicked backcourt turnovers
04:36and finishing around the basket to all but erase that UNI lead.
04:40These last 9 minutes had all the trappings of that typical tournament game
04:44where a Cinderella threatens a historic upset
04:47only for the better, more mature team to right the ship
04:51and evade disaster before it's too late.
04:53It could still end that way.
04:56But this time, just the once, just now,
04:59those pressing Jayhawks couldn't make the backcourt steal.
05:02UNI escaped the trap,
05:04leaving one guy basically alone to run some clock
05:07and leave Kansas as little time as possible.
05:10But is he actually going to run clock?
05:12Is he?
05:13He's not going to shoot, is he?
05:15Who is this kid?
05:17Okay, I'm not going to make you sit through the rabbit hole
05:20I went down studying 20th century Iranian history,
05:23but I want you to know I did that research
05:25because it does apply to this moment.
05:28Look over here in the crowd.
05:31This wonderfully mustachioed man is Dr. Mashallah Farrokh Manesh.
05:35People call him Farrokh.
05:36He is a prominent figure in Iranian volleyball,
05:39both playing and coaching.
05:44In the late 1970s, Farrokh emigrated from Iran to the United States
05:48to get postgraduate degrees in physical education.
05:51While Iran went through its revolution of 1979,
05:54Farrokh stayed in the U.S. to coach volleyball.
05:57And I believe he just missed being teammates
06:00with Wilt Chamberlain on a pro volleyball team.
06:03Anyway, in the early 80s, Farrokh met coach Cindy Frederick
06:07at a volleyball camp in Iowa,
06:08then became her husband and her assistant
06:11as she broke into the D1 coaching ranks,
06:13first at Weber State in Utah, then at Washington State.
06:17Their son, Ali, born in 1988, preferred basketball to volleyball.
06:22When the family moved back to Iowa,
06:24he distinguished himself
06:25as one of the best high school players in the state.
06:28Unfortunately, college coaches didn't see high-level potential
06:32in a 5'11 guard who wasn't even very quick.
06:35That includes his current coach.
06:37And that includes the coach at the University of Iowa
06:40where his mom worked.
06:41Family ties couldn't even get him a walk-on spot.
06:44Not interested.
06:46So, Ali Farrokh Manesh kept playing ball in community college,
06:50and he flourished.
06:51As a sophomore, his point guard skills
06:53and unbelievable accuracy from downtown
06:56earned him recognition as one of the best juco players
06:58in the nation, with some absurd shooting numbers.
07:01That is when the D1 offers rolled in.
07:04The UNI Panthers, regretting their prior assessment
07:07and beset by backcourt injuries,
07:09brought Farrokh Manesh on as a transfer last season.
07:13Immediately, Farrokh Manesh became UNI's starting point guard,
07:16and immediately, he became one of the highest volume
07:19three-point shooters in the Missouri Valley Conference.
07:22And things have gone well for the Panthers.
07:24Last year, they won the MVC
07:26and made their first big dance of coach Ben Jacobson's tenure.
07:30This year, they did it all again.
07:32And more.
07:34Some important context here before we go further.
07:37Before this week, UNI had won exactly one NCAA tournament game.
07:42It was back in 1990 when Maurice Newby
07:45hit this legendary, highly contested buzzer beater
07:48to complete a 14-over-3 upset against Mizzou.
07:52Oh, Newby.
07:56By the way, for the real sickos out there,
07:58somewhere on this ecstatic bench is Nick Nurse,
08:01a former sharp-shooting UNI star just like Ali,
08:04who went on to become a Panthers assistant
08:06and currently coaches the Iowa Energy of the NBA D-League.
08:10And more context.
08:12UNI entered this 2010 tournament a 9th seed,
08:15their highest seeding ever,
08:17but they actually took that as a slight.
08:19They think they're better than that
08:20and may have been ranked accordingly
08:22if they didn't play a chunk of their schedule
08:23without Eggle Cedar and suffer some rough late-season losses.
08:28Either way, they got themselves a round-one matchup against UNLV.
08:32Farouk Minesh came out firing, which is what he does.
08:35Don't let UNI's slow pace and long playbook fool you.
08:38Coach Jacobson gives these guys a green light,
08:41and Ali uses it more than anyone.
08:43Farouk Minesh took nine threes against UNLV,
08:46the last of which was this heavily contested game winner in the clutch.
08:50This was like exactly the same spot
08:53as Maurice Newby's game winner 20 years earlier,
08:56almost to the day.
08:58For a while, today looked different.
09:00UNI has led most of the game, yes,
09:02but not because of Ali.
09:04For the first 10 plus minutes of this game,
09:06Farouk Minesh didn't even take a shot.
09:09Then, beginning with this deep bomb,
09:12he rattled off a torrent of jumpers,
09:14and then he went silent again
09:15while Kansas trapped their way back into contention.
09:18At the moment, Farouk Minesh is three for nine from downtown.
09:22He has been bold for parts of this game,
09:24but not consistently so,
09:25especially since the Kansas press jacked up UNI's game plan.
09:29But, right now, the ball is in his hands.
09:32Ali gets to decide whether to run clock
09:35for the best and latest possible shot,
09:38or to exploit that perpetual green light
09:40and shoot for the upset clinching dagger right here,
09:44right now, orthodoxy be damned.
09:46So many things had to fall into place
09:48to make this moment possible for Ali,
09:50beginning with the unique familial history
09:53that brought him into existence,
09:55and then to the state of Iowa.
09:56The mighty Kansas Jayhawks faced a huge deficit,
09:59but came roaring back
10:01after their star center went down with an injury.
10:04With a stop and a bucket,
10:06they could avoid the upset,
10:07and they just missed getting that stop mere seconds ago.
10:11The underdog UNI Panthers have already pushed boundaries
10:14by even advancing this far.
10:16Hold this lead,
10:17and they'll make the first Sweet 16 in team history.
10:20In fact, it would be the first Sweet 16
10:23for the whole Missouri Valley Conference
10:25since Larry Bird's Indiana State Sycamore
10:27has reached the tournament final in 1979.
10:30So, what's it gonna be, Ali?
10:32It's all on you right now.
10:34All that narrative sits on your shoulders.
10:36You gonna play it safe,
10:37or are you gonna let it fly?
10:38Welcome to a moment in history.
10:41Farouk Banesh, a three.
10:43Goal!
10:48That will be the dagger,
10:50especially with this charge to deny a Kansas response,
10:53but let's watch Ali finish it off at the line.
11:02Isn't this something?
11:06Point four, they do.
11:08On the first day of spring,
11:10number one has fallen.