Missouri Valley Conference Basketball

NCAA Tournament Second Round Recap - Northern Iowa vs Kansas

(9) Northern Iowa 69, (1) Kansas 67

The Northern Iowa Panthers, for 30 minutes, looked so poised and so composed, immune to the pressures of playing the No. 1 team in the country in March.

They controlled the pace of the game, calmly running their offense and protecting the ball. They routinely found the open man and, more importantly, hit shots when they were there. Defensively, they took the Jayhawks out of everything they wanted to do, stymieing an offense that was as efficient as any in the country this season.

That all changed in the last 10 minutes.

Kansas, clearly the more athletic team (and it's not even a close call in that regard), threw on a press that rattled the Panthers. Instead of a slow-paced battle based on the ability to execute on both ends, the game turned into a haggard, up-and-down, glorified AAU game.

After erasing a 12 point lead, Kansas scored six points in the blink of an eye to trim a 63-56 deficit to 63-62 on a Sherron Collins floater with just 42 seconds left on the clock. Following a Bill Self timeout, Kansas put their press back on. If you don't call Cedar Falls ( Iowa) home, you probably expected the worst.

But Northern Iowa broke the press. Panther forward Jake Koch inbounded the ball to Adam Koch, who avoided a trap sending the ball right back to his brother. Jake nearly threw the ball away as he hit Kwadzo Ahelegbe who then found Ali Farokhmanesh up the sideline. Farokhmanesh was wide open on the three point line, but his team still led by a point with 35 seconds left and just a seven-second differential between game clock and shot clock. If Northern Iowa held the ball for the duration of the shot clock, the No. 1 overall seed in the 2010 NCAA Tournament would have had only seven seconds to hit one shot and somehow escape its place of pronounced peril.

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If a layup is available in such a situation, the unwritten "book" of basketball says that a player or team should take the two points and build a three-point lead. However, a wide-open three - even for a clutch shooter like Farokhmanesh, who shot down UNLV on Thursday night with a 26-foot bomb in the final 10 seconds - is just not a high-percentage proposition. When the descendant of Iranian immigrants released his shot in the final clamorous minute of this king-size contest against credentialed Kansas, most of the people inside Oklahoma City's Ford Center had to be thinking, "I can't believe he took that shot." Northern Iowa fans and probably coach Ben Jacobsen felt, "NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!"

Yet, much as Saint Mary's College topped Villanova earlier in the day thanks to a bad (percentage) shot that somehow found its way into the basket and tipped the balance in favor of the much lower seed, the same thing happened in this Panther-Jayhawk classic. After Farokhmanesh let fly with his fated shot... well... as they say, the rest is history. Farokhmanesh - who will become a household name in America after his star turn in a March Madness success story - hit his three, which pushed the Northern Iowa lead to four points - at 66-62 - and all but sealed the win with 35 seconds to go.

Ali Farokhmanesh. The name is one you likely haven't heard of unless you're a serious college hoops junkie. But now, that name will be mentioned whenever legendary college basketball upsets are mentioned, and whenever underdogs try to envision taking down a goliath in this endlessly magical sport.

Ding, dong, the No. 1 seed is dead. The Jayhawks - figuratively speaking, of course - are not in Kansas anymore.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Staff Writer