UNLV-Northern Iowa rematch stirs memories of 2010 thriller

The basketball had just left Ali Farokhmanesh’s right hand when his mother, Cindy Fredrick, raised three fingers.

Neither had any doubt the 3-pointer was going in, and when it dropped through, Farokhmanesh had lifted Northern Iowa to a 69-66 first-round victory, eliminating UNLV from the 2010 NCAA Tournament.

“Any shooter will tell you when you catch it in a rhythm like that and you see the hoop, you know it’s going in as soon as you shoot it every single time,” Farokhmanesh said. “When you’re stepping in rhythm like that, that feeling of the ball, the leather on your fingertips, you shoot so many shots in your lifetime, it feels so natural.”

The teams meet again Wednesday at the McLeod Center in Cedar Falls, Iowa. ESPN3 will stream the game, which is part of the Mountain West-Missouri Valley Challenge.

UNLV (6-0) won the MGM Resorts Main Event last week at T-Mobile Arena, and Northern Iowa (5-2) advanced to the championship game of the Battle 4 Atlantis. The Panthers’ only losses have been to North Carolina and Villanova, who were both ranked in the top 10 at the time.

But there isn’t as much at stake as there was seven years ago when the Rebels entered the Tournament as a No. 8 seed, facing the No. 9 Panthers. The game came down to the final 4.9 seconds when Farokhmanesh drilled his shot.

“I remember that game against UNLV and how intense that game was,” Fredrick said. “I remember being so impressed with UNLV and thinking how tenacious they were on defense, and I thought, ‘Oh, dear God, we’re in trouble.’ Then lo and behold, they pulled it out.”

Fredrick, who has been UNLV’s volleyball coach since Dec. 22, 2010, wasn’t surprised how Northern Iowa posted the upset. She had watched her son take shot after shot, including for two hours one Christmas night at Iowa’s arena when he asked to be let into the building.

So there was little shock to her when two days after the upset of UNLV her son took another 3-pointer in the final minute against No. 1 seed Kansas. The Panthers led by a point, and Farokhmanesh’s 3-pointer extended the lead to four points in a 69-67 victory.

Sports Illustrated put him on its cover the following week, with the headline: “Divine madness.”

“It was a really cool moment,” Farokhmanesh said. “It’s something you always dream about. It’s something I’ll always remember and cherish, and it summed up that whole weekend.”

After Northern Iowa, Farokhmanesh played in Europe for four years before returning to the United States to coach, which seemed like his destiny. His dad, Mashallah Farokhmanesh, is an assistant coach with the Rebels volleyball team.

Once, when Fredrick was the coach at Washington State and attending a national tournament, her son, then 10, headed to a nearby court to watch two recruits play. He came back and told his mother the athletes weren’t fast enough, but another player was “a stud and you better get her.”

“And we did,” Fredrick said. “He really has a good eye for not just a good basketball player or good volleyball player, but a good athlete.”

Farokhmanesh, 29, is a first-year assistant men’s basketball coach at Drake, and he recently asked Fredrick about a recruit he was interested in. He was concerned he might be missing something. She told him to trust his gut.

That worked for him on those shots against UNLV and Kansas.

In the Northern Iowa-UNLV rematch on Wednesday, Fredrick will cheer for her employer. Her son is sticking with his alma mater.

“Especially now that I’m at Drake, I’ve got to pull for the Missouri Valley,” Farokhmanesh said. “So I definitely will be pulling for (Northern Iowa) for two reasons.”

Contact Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @markanderson65 on Twitter.