Farokhmanesh relishes ESPY experience

NORTH LIBERTY -- Ali Farokhmanesh's whirlwind year took him to Los Angeles last week and back to North Liberty on Sunday.

Farokhmanesh, an Iowa City native, joined former Northern Iowa teammate Adam Koch and UNI Coach Ben Jacobson to accept an award for "Best Upset" at the ESPN-sponsored ESPY Awards last week. Farokhmanesh drilled a late 3-pointer that virtually sealed UNI's 69-67 upset win over top-seeded Kansas in the NCAA Tournament four months ago.

The UNI trio flew to Los Angeles last Tuesday with plenty of time to spare for Wednesday's event.

"We got to go to the New Orleans Saints football party, and that was awesome to hang out with those guys and seeing random stars around," Farokhmanesh said Sunday. "After that we just got to spend the day just hanging out and going different places and gift baskets and stuff. It was a blast doing that ... and the red carpet was amazing."

ESPN paid for their trip, which Farokhmanesh said "made it even better."

"It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing to go out there and just kind of get to mingle with some of those star athletes that you see all the time of TV," Farokhmanesh said. "That was the best part. And then getting the award for kind of putting an end to the whole season, kind of the miracle season that we had."

Farokhmanesh, who played Sunday in North Liberty's Prime Time League, was surprised with the award, but he said Jacobson "had some idea" that they would win.

"(Jacobson) had to talk to the producer about how long the speech had to be and stuff like that," Farokhmanesh said. "But for the most part we had no idea the whole time."

Farokhmanesh, who played high school basketball at Iowa City West, averaged 9.7 points in his two seasons at Northern Iowa. He scored 17 points, including the game-winning 3-pointer in the NCAA Tournament-opening win against UNLV. He scored 16 points against Kansas.

He plans to play professionally in Germany starting in late August.