Farokhmanesh, the art of mastering the moment
March 26th, 2010 Posted in NCAA basketball news, NCAA college basketballThe keyword here at the Midwest Regional is “gutsy.”
Or maybe, as one Bill Raftery often says, it’s “Onions!”
Ohio State guard Jon Diebler preferred “unconscious.”
Tennessee’s Scotty Hopson wasn’t quite so delicate when describing the biggest shot o– and the confidence to make the shot,” the Volunteers guard said.
The guy who took the shot has his own word for his instant celebrity: “Overwhelming.”
There are a lot of descriptions for what Ali Farokhmanesh did to Kansas in Saturday’s 69-67 upset in Oklahoma City. There is only one “Stroke,” the relatively new nickname for the Northe upside down.
When Farokhmanesh went up for an ill-advised three from the right wing against Kansas with 30-something seconds left on Saturday, a generation of purists were screaming, “No, no, no!” at the 6-foot (being generous) honorable mention all-Missouri Valley performer.
When he came down, the Panthers’ lead had grown from one to four and Farokhmanesh was the poster boy for the tournament. Millions witnessed Kansas’ heart being ripped out at the same time millions of brackets were being ripped up.
The majority of by-the-book teams would have pulled the ball out and run some clock in that situation. Or at least gotten a better shot. But the most prominent member of the minority sat at his locker Thursday, overwhelmed, prior to Friday’s regional semi with Michigan State. put him on the cover this week. Noted former NBA gunner Reggie Miller called out of the blue to say, “I would have taken that shot, too.” Farokhmanesh’s autograph is suddenly gold.
One word couldn’t describe it.
The basketball world was wondering where all of it came from and if Farokhmanesh and the Panthers can keep it up. In two tournament games, the senior has beaten UNLV with the game winner with 4.9 seconds left and stuck a dagger in Kansas’ back.
“We were in a place where nobody knew his name and nobody knew how to say his name,” said Raftery, the CBS analyst, who was in Providence, R.I., last weekend, “and people just went bananas. … It’s what the tournament is about in a way.”
There are tournament heroes, but few of them are the product of a former Iranian national team volleyball player and a native Iowa volleyball coach. Mashallah Farokhmanesh came to the States on a bet with a friend, his wife, Cindy Fredrick, said. He ended up at Western Illinois, getting his master’s degree and playing volleyball.
Mashallah and Cindy met at a volleyball camp in Lamoni, Iowa. Ali is their only child, named after a grandfather in Iran he has never met. The rest has built up to Ali’s tournament moment; in the Farokhmanesh household, no one is surprised.
“He’s been taking these shots forever. … These two games against UNLV and Kansas,” Fredrick said, “They didn’t just happen.”
No they didn’t. Ali was a gym rat as mom and dad coached volleyball together for 26 years at stops like Washington State and Iowa. At Washington State, Ali kept track of timeouts in basketball as a 10-year-old. There was little in his background seemingly to qualify him for this moment, though.
Out of Iowa City West High School, he didn’t receive a single offer from a Division I or Division II school. After a brief stop at Indian Hills Community College in southeast Iowa, he went to Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids. That’s where coach Doug Wagemester had to convince a kid who would take 500-600 shots a day on his own to … shoot the ball.
“Or your ass is on the bench,” Fredrick recalled Wagemester saying.
Mom used to pull a slip of paper out of her billfold that read, “You have to take the hero shots to make the hero shots.” Farokhmanesh did and Division I came calling. It came down to Northern Iowa and Saint Louis University. The Panthers’ best players would be around longer, so Ali headed up the road to Cedar Falls to average 9.6 points two seasons ago and 9.7 this season.
The Farokhmaneshes were typical parents, following their son around to his games. Well, typical if most parents trek from Cedar Falls to the likes of Evansville, Ind., Carbondale, Ill., and Oklahoma City to see their son play. Their 2008 Camry has accumulated 55,000 miles the last two years.
During those long trips, Cindy Fredrick listens to books on tape. has caught her ear. Author Geoff Colvin wrote that hard work is the difference in most big-time achievers in all walks of life, not necessarily talent.
“That’s our son right there,” Fredrick said.
In the Missouri Valley, a coach can afford to take chances on projects. The league is built on them. For every Adam Koch, the Valley Player of t who calls himself, “A garbage man. I do the dirty work.”
“We weren’t like everybody else who said, ‘You’re too small and not quite quick enough,’” Northern Iowa coach Ben Jacobson said of Farokhmanesh. “He was in our camps. We just weren’t sure about a couple of things about him being able to excel at this level. We had opportunity to see him play, but he didn’t shoot it great that night. It was kind of the other things that really attracted me to him. He had gotten quicker, his ball handling had gotten better.”
Last year, Stroke hit a key 3-pointer to help beat Illinois State in overtime in the Missouri Valley tournament championship game. A three with 34 seconds left helped complete a comeback against Iowa State. Two 25-foot threes in the second half helped beat Drake.
But those are distant, lesser moments. How do those shots qualify him to have the onions to defy basketball logic and lead a mid-major to the Sweet 16? There’s a difference between playing to win and good sense.
“My reaction was typical of most people watching,” Wagemester said. “Wow, probably a little ill-advised. But if you know the kid you’re not surprised he took the shot.”
Yes, we are. The Midwest, “the region of death,” now has been opened up. Ohio State is the de facto favorite now. Michigan State is wounded but tested. Tenn Kansas and Kentucky.
But would anyone be surprised if Stroke stroked in one more to send the Panthers to Indianapolis?
“The nation has kind of embraced this, it’s s but ‘This guy came out of nowhere and did what?’”
Just try to describe it in one word.
