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March Madness hero who took down Kansas named head coach at Colorado State
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Ali Farokmanesh, a March Madness hero as a player, will now try to add to his NCAA Tournament legacy as a head coach.
Farokmanesh is the new head coach at Colorado State, where he has been an assistant coach.
Sources: Colorado State has promoted assistant Ali Farokmanesh to head coach.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) March 26, 2025
Farokmanesh is a March Madness legend for what he did in 2010. After 2 seasons of JUCO ball, he joined Northern Iowa in 2008. In 2010, UNI reached the Sweet 16 thanks to Farokmanesh’s heroics.
As the 9-seed, the 2010 Panthers had defeated 8-seed UNLV in the first round to set up a showdown with No. 1 seed Kansas. Farokmanesh’s late 3-pointer to put UNI up 66-62 is the most memorable moment from the Panthers’ 69-67 upset victory over the Jayhawks.
Ali Farokhmanesh, a college basketball icon. pic.twitter.com/8VbX5eC0WZ https://t.co/ywrVZgDmZx
— Ben Stevens (@BenScottStevens) March 26, 2025
Farokmanesh was not picked in the NBA Draft, but found professional playing opportunities overseas from 2010-14. In 2014, he returned to the US and decided to get into college coaching.
Farokmanesh got his start at Nebraska as a GA and worked his way up to assistant coaching gigs at Drake and Colorado State. Now, he’ll try to get CSU back into the NCAA Tournament after the Rams defeated Memphis and came up just short of the Sweet 16 in a loss to Maryland. Farokmanesh succeeds Niko Medved, who was recently hired by Minnesota.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
