March Madness Hero Ali Farokhmanesh Reportedly Hired as Colorado State HC
Colorado State has promoted assistant men's basketball coach Ali Farokhmanesh to head coach to replace Niko Medved, who left the Rams for the University of Minnesota, per CBS Sports' Jon Rothstein and Kevin Sweeney of Sports Illustrated.
Farokhmanesh is a legendary March Madness hero for his dagger three-pointer in No. 9 seed Northern Iowa's stunning 69-67 upset win over No. 1 seed Kansas in the second round of the 2010 NCAA tournament.
Up 63-62 with 37 seconds of game time (and 30 seconds of shot clock time) left, the Panthers had a chance to run out most of the remaining clock, holding KU to one final possession. Farokhmanesh took matters into his own hands, though, hitting a wide-open three to put Northern Iowa up 66-62.
Farokhmanesh finished with a team-high 16 points.
After his collegiate career ended in the Sweet Sixteen to Michigan State that year, Farokhmanesh played professionally overseas in Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands for four years before returning to the United States to coach.
The 36-year-old Farokhmanesh has been a CSU assistant since 2018, when he followed Medved from Drake to the Rams. He began his coaching career at Nebraska in 2014 as a graduate assistant. Farokhmanesh then became the Cornhuskers' director of player development for the 2016-17 season before leaving for Drake.
CSU's decision to promote Farokhmanesh comes as no surprise. The Rams just won the Mountain West Conference championship, earning a No. 12 seed in the NCAA tournament. CSU then defeated No. 5 seed Memphis 78-70 and took No. 4 seed Maryland to the limit before losing on a buzzer-beating heartbreaker, 72-71.
In five of CSU's past six seasons, the Rams have won 20 or more games. In three of CSU's past four seasons, the Rams won 25 or more games, including a 26-10 record this year. CSU made the NCAA tournament in all three of those seasons. So the Rams hope to continue that success by promoting from within.
Farokhmanesh has a lot of playing and coaching experience even at a younger age, and his success as an assistant certainly helps him here. Ultimately, it wouldn't be a surprise to see Farokhmanesh engineer some more March Madness magic, this time as a coach.
