N. Iowa flattens No. 1 Kansas

OKLAHOMA CITY - Ali Farokhmanesh stood behind the three-point line with the basketball and Kansas' dream season in his hands. Two rows up, Cindy Fredrick yelled at her son to shoot the basketball.

There were 35 seconds left, 30 on the shot clock, and Farokhmanesh's Northern Iowa team was up one. It was a split-second decision that will rock the NCAA tournament.

"I always want him to shoot it," she said. "Always. His dad yells the same thing, but he's Iranian, so you can't always understand it."

She laughed, because that's what you do after your son swished the biggest shot of the tournament. Farokhmanesh did shoot it, of course, the ball splashing through the net for one of those video clips that will now live on every March.

Northern Iowa beat top-ranked Kansas, 69-67, in Oklahoma City yesterday, and there won't be a bigger upset in this tournament because there isn't a bigger power left.

After trailing by 12 with 12 minutes, 31 seconds left, the Jayhawks (33-3) had cut the lead to one at 63-62 with 42 seconds left. But the trey by the senior sharpshooter opened a 66-62 lead, providing the ninth-seeded Panthers (30-4) with the separation they would need.

This is the power of March Madness, where a 6-foot guard from Iowa City can go from unrecruited by Division I schools out of high school to forcing the college basketball world to learn to pronounce his name.

"I was going to see if I could drive it," Farokhmanesh said. "Then [Kansas' Tyrel Reed] backed off so far that I thought I might as well just shoot this one."

It wasn't just his parents hoping he'd shoot it. Northern Iowa guard Anthony James says he sees Farokhmanesh hit those shots in practice all the time.

"To be honest," said walk-on Brian Haak, "that's as good as a layup for him."

Farokhmanesh, who finished with 16 points, also hit the game-winner from 25 feet against UNLV on Thursday, then swished the shot that sank Kansas - everybody's title favorite - and gave coach Bill Self his hardest loss.

"I really didn't think he was going to shoot it," Reed said. "I thought he was going to try to run some time off the clock."

The repercussions of this around Kansas City will set in almost immediately: KU has its 2008 championship, but this was supposed to be another title team - a Final Four one at least.

Instead it will be labeled as an underachiever whose sometimes casual attitude caught up at the worst time.

Prep Charter graduate Marcus Morris had 16 points for Kansas, and Cole Aldrich had 13 points and 10 rebounds, but Sherron Collins ended his stellar KU career with 10 points on 4-of-15 shooting.

Next up for the Panthers: the Michigan State-Maryland winner, next weekend in St. Louis

"Crazy," Northern Iowa's James said. "We used to watch Kansas all the time on TV. I'm in my dorm watching them a lot, like, 'Oh, he's cold,' or, 'Oh, that guy's going to the NBA.' I never thought we would run up against them."