
That's Ali Farokhmanesh, the Northern Iowa guard who hit the game-icing 3-pointer Saturday after Kansas had whittled its deficit to one. Typical of an underdog, Farokhmanesh concedes that when he was in high school, he wasn't even sure he'd play Division I basketball.
"To go from that to, we're in the Sweet Sixteen, we just beat the No. 1 team in the country," Farokhmanesh said. "I mean, if someone would have told me that back then I would have laughed at them probably. But I think it shows that hard work really does pay off."