How NCAA tournament star Ali Farokhmanesh got away from WSU Cougars

The biggest star on the Colorado State sideline will not be in uniform Friday. You won’t find his name on the roster or in any of the team’s box scores this season. 

That’s because the biggest star on the Colorado State sideline is an assistant coach who was born in Pullman and grew up a die-hard Coug fan. He also hit one of the most famous shots in men’s NCAA tournament history. 

Fifteen years ago today (or Thursday if you’re reading this in print), ninth-seeded Northern Iowa held a one-point lead against No. 1 overall seed Kansas with 35 seconds left in the Round of 32. That’s when Ali Farokhmanesh — the aforementioned CSU assistant — knocked down a fast break three-pointer that put the Panthers up four and essentially sealed the win. 

UNI’s 69-67 victory was the upset of the tournament, and it sent the school to its first and only Sweet 16. So how does Farokhmanesh, whose 12th-seeded Rams will take on fifth-seeded Memphis on Friday in the NCAA tournament’s Round of 64 at Climate Pledge Arena, feel about that shot a decade and a half later?

“I feel older. Especially when you say 15 years,” said a grinning Farokhmanesh, whose official title at CSU is associate head coach. “No, I just think that’s what March Madness is about. At the end of the day, everyone has an opportunity to play in this, and you get the chance to go head to head against somebody and see what you’re made of. I think that’s the beauty of the tournament.” 

Farokhmanesh, like any serious hooper, likely dreamed of hitting an all-time shot in the tourney one day. But he didn’t grow up wanting to do it for Northern Iowa. Given that his mom was the women’s volleyball coach at Washington State and his dad one of her assistants, Ali’s goal was to don the Crimson and Gray. 

Farokhmanesh said former WSU football star Ryan Leaf showed up to his birthday party when he turned 8. He added that he was probably one of the few kids familiar with the WSU basketball personnel in the dog days of the late ’90s and early 2000s. 

But when he was 15, his mother accepted a job as the women’s volleyball coach at Iowa, and Ali became a Midwesterner. In 2008, after two seasons playing junior college ball, Northern Iowa — not WSU — came calling. 

Safe to say it worked out. 

After sending the Panthers to the Sweet 16, Farokhmanesh became royalty in Cedar Falls. Tributes to that late-game triple seem to pop up every March. Five years ago — in an attack of the cute — Ali recreated the shot with his wife and three children on camera, which was punctuated by his 2-year-old son crying in a Kansas jersey. 

Still, Farokhmanesh doesn’t really talk about the moment with CSU’s players unless they bring it up. At least that’s his side of the story. 

Senior guard Nique Clifford, the Rams’ leader in points, rebounds and assists, has a different one. 

“I don’t know if I really knew about the shot until I met Ali my junior or senior year of high school. That’s when I met him, started getting recruited and then of course, going through that process, he loved to show off his big shot and that he’s a legend,” a laughing Clifford said. “He is showing the YouTube clips, it’s all on Twitter. I don’t blame him, though. If I had those shots, I would be showing them off, too.” 

Colorado State point guard Kyan Evans, on the other hand, didn’t need Farokhmanesh to tell him anything about that shot. Being from Kansas City — where his parents were rabid Kansas fans — he was all too aware of Ali’s heroics before his recruitment. 

Do you guys talk about that shot much? 

“We ask him why he thought it was a good shot at the time,” Evans said. 

After all, Ali did shoot it with 30 seconds left on the shot clock and 36 seconds on the game clock with just one teammate past midcourt. 

“If you know him, though, he definitely felt like it was a great shot. We talk a lot about how if you make the shot, it’s a good shot. If he made it, then I think it’s a good shot.” 

But Clifford and Evans will tell you they might not be at CSU without Farokhmanesh, who began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Nebraska in 2014, became an assistant at Drake in 2016 and moved to CSU alongside coach Niko Medved in 2018. He’s loyal. He’s always in the gym working with players individually. His X’s and O’s acumen is elite. And perhaps more than anything, he’s a living, breathing example of the glory this Dance can bring. 

“That was 15 years ago, and we’re still talking about it now,” Evans said. “This tournament can change people’s lives.”