KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN MONDAY, MARCH 22, 2010 / SPORTS
5B
WA 69, NO.1 KANSAS 67
TBALLREWIND
Photos by Weston White/KANSAN
umps his fist the air after a charge was called against Kansas guard Tyrel Reed. Reed scored ball over two
How do you spell defeat?
F-a-r-o-k-h-m-a-n-e-s-h
BY TIM DWYER
tdwyer@kansan.com
OKLAHOMA CITY — Fans of boxer Muhammad Ali used to have a chant.
"Ali! Bomaye!" they chanted before his 1974 Rumble in the Jungle with George Foreman. Roughly translated, the chant means "Ali! Kill him!"
Saturday, it was a different Ali doing the slaving.
With just 34 seconds left - all of 28 on the shot clock - and his Panthers clinging to a one-point lead over the mighty Kansas Jayhawks, Northern Iowa senior guard Ali Farokhmanesh had an open look from three-point range, so he rose up and took it.
Then, like it did two days earlier when Farokhanesh hit a game-winning three to get the Panthers on Saturday's contest, the ball hit nothing but twine. Ali, like the eponymous boxer so often did, delivered a staggering knockout punch, putting the Panthers up four and the game out of reach.
"Kind of like last
Kind of like last night, I guess, I was just open on that side," Farokhmanesh said. "They were trapping, and it came up to me. I was going to go and Johnny was on the other wing. I was going to see if I could drive it, then he backed off so far that I thought 'I might as well just shoot this one'"
"The guy's got guts. He's 0-for-6 in the second half, there's a seven second dif ferential, and he goes for it."
BILL SELF head coach
you know that shot is going up at the end of the game," said teammate Johnny Moran.
It was a play that most coaches would hate. When the top-ranked team in the country is within one point, nothing but the clock matters. That — and, apparently, the moon-sized cajones of Farokhmanesh.
It was such an unusual situation to take the shot in that Tyrel Reed, who was defending Farokhanmesh, fell back, assuming Northern Iowa would milk the clock for as long as it could. It was the right play nine out of 10 times. Saturday just happened to be the exception.
"I don't know if coach really wanted him to shoot that when he was like that in that position, but if you know Ali,
"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. But he did and he made a great shot."
Northern Iowa coach Ben Jacobson actually said he was all right with Farakkmanesh taking the shot. Even before it went in.
"If they defend the way they're supposed to," Northern Iowa coach Ben Jacobson said, "they can play the way they want to on offense and they can take the shots that they think are good for our team."
Check and check. Karokhmanesh's three was, by Jacobson's logic, just fine because of the stifling defense the Panthers played. Sherron Collins.
a featured star all year long for the top-ranked team in the country, had five turnovers, a number he hasn't touched since the Jayhawks' loss to Oklahoma State on Feb. 27.
Collins and sophomore guard Tyshawn Taylor went cold, combining to go 0-for-11 from three-point range. So Saturday, Ali took the spotlight with a shot that defied conventional wisdom.
"The guy's got guts. He's 0-for-6 in the second half, and there's a seven second differential and he goes for it," Self said. "Give him credit. That was a heck of a shot."
Edited by Jesse Rangel
ward Adam Koth dropped called and Koth sank the
Sophomore forward Marcus Morris forces a northern Iowa guard to step out-of-bounds along the baseline. The turnover gave Kansas the ball with 52 seconds on the clock and down three, setting up a jump by senior guard Sherron Collins to bring the Panthers lead to one.
Senior guard Sherron Collins sits alone in the locker room after being questioned by members of the media for nearly 20 minutes. Kansas is now 15-6 under coach Bill Self in NCAA Tournament play.
Farokhmanesh was essential in the dismantling of the Jayhawks. In the first half, the trigger-happy guard knocked down all three of his three-point attempts. He missed his first six in the second, but made the one that mattered most, lifting the Panthers to the stunning upset. He finished with 16 points, one rebound and one assist in 31 minutes of action.
Game to remember
Ali Farokhmanesh
Game to forget
Farokmanesh
Collins
Senior guard Sherron Collins
Stat of the night
For so many reasons. Collins played his last game in a legendary Kansas career, a heartbreaker of a loss to a slow-as-molasses Northern Iowa team. Collins missed all six of his three point attempts, including one in the role of Mario Chalmers as the Jayhawks tried to execute the play that won them a national championship in 2008.
342
Coming into the game, Northern Iowa was the 342nd slowest team in the country, out of 347, in terms
Quote of the night
of possessions per game. It was the Panthers' ability to control the tempo of the game, slowing it down so the Jayhawks simply didn't have enough time to mount a comeback, which made the difference in the end.
"Everyone is very disappointed, sad that it happened, especially for Sherron because he's the ultimate competitor. There's nobody I would go to war with but Sherron. He's the ultimate teammate, ultimate competitor. He's been great for this program and I wish we could have sent him out on a much better note."
Reed
— junior guard Tyrel Reed
Prime plays
1STHALF (SCORE AFTER PLAY)
3:09- Maybe that will stop the bleeding. Tyshawn Taylor hit Marcus Morris for an alley-oop — a desperately needed basket. (26:33)
12:16- Marcus Morris hit a straightaway three. The Jayhawks were 13:0 all-time when that happened entering the game.(12:17)
16:33 - Unable to stop anything by Northern Iowa, Xavier Henry hit a big three after fake-stepping a defender. First shot made by somebody not named Cole Aldrich. (7-12)
14:27 - Xavier Henry hit a critical three. Those were his first points of the game. (35-42)
11:36 Facing a critical point in the game down 12, Cole Aldrich hit a jump-hook. Sherron Collins stole the inbounds pass, but was blocked. Kansas somehow got the ball back and Xavier Henry put in a floater, making a one possession game. (39-47)
6:36 Markieff Morris put the layup in, drew the foul and made the free throw. (48-54)
2ND HALF
2:49 Tyrel Reed intercepted an inbounds pass and Markieff Morris put it in for two. (56-59)
Key stats
2004
The last No.1 seed to lose in the second round was Kentucky in 2004.
0-11
Sherron Collins and Tyshawn Taylor were a combind 0-11 from three-point territory.
44.4%
Kansas shot 44.4 percent while Northern Iowa shot 40 percent. It's the first time the Jayhawks lost when outshooting their opponent.
Tim Dwyer and Corey Thibodeaux
COLUMN (CONTINUED FROM 1B)
adapt sooner to the scoreboard and Northern Iowa's ssslllloooowww style. Forcing the issue would have been a mistake, but a strategy shift in the second half illustrated a larger point.
Kansas should have pressed earlier in the game.
Self has never been a fan of the press, but by watching UNLV's first half performance against Northern Iowa in the first round, he had to notice UNLV's pressing success. Northern Iowa's guards can't break the press by dribbling like Collins or Tyshawn Taylor could, so they toss it around from guard to guard looking to find gaps.
Kansas is athletic enough to close many of those gaps and make steals. They showed it in
When asked about the press after the game, Self said it would have been foolish to increase the chances of fouling and sending Northern Iowa to the free-throw stripe early in the half. It's also easier for teams to score against the press when they aren't trying to run clock. Both are valid points, but merely showing the press and not playing aggressively would have caused more than a couple turn-overs. It would have sped up the Panthers, a team that plays slower than a sundial.
their comeback attempt late in the second half, forcing four Panthers turnovers in the final three minutes.
Self also said after the game that he didn't switch to the press earlier because it's not the way the Jayhawks play. The way the Jayhawks played put them down eight points at half, so maybe adjustments should have been
made
So my questions are these: Was Self confident enough in his team to keep playing the same style because Northern Iowa isn't a top-10 talented team? If Kansas was down double digits to a more talented team that had shaky point guard play, would they have pressed earlier?
Using the press even mere minutes earlier in the second half would have closed the gap and given Kansas more possessions to mount a comeback.
Hard to say, impossible to know.
But when you're playing one of the bottom-10 teams in the nation in terms of number of possessions per game and losing by 10 in the second half, you have to do something.
Pressing earlier was that something.
- Edited by Cory Bunting