Minnesota hired Colorado State’s Niko Medved on Monday, agreeing to a six-year contract with the Twin Cities-area native and former student manager for the Gophers who had the Rams within one basket of the Sweet 16.
"Now is the time, to really get this moving in the right direction," the new Gopher coach said Tuesday after Athletic Director Mark Coyle officially welcomed him in a press conference as the head of a program that has struggled in recent years.
Coyle said it took some incredible support from the leadership at the University in order to make these moves which cost them a buyout of previous coach Ben Johnson, plus a buyout of Medved's contract at Colorado State.
"I hope you know how much we appreciate you believing in us and coming to Minnesota, I promise you it's going to be a great experience," Coyle said while introducing Medved, who Coyle adds has been a winner everywhere he's coached.
Medved was the front-runner from the start to succeed Johnson, who was fired on March 13 after going 56-71 overall and 22-57 in the Big Ten in four years on the job. Minnesota athletic director Mark Coyle has been eager to revitalize a struggling program that has made the NCAA Tournament twice in the last 12 seasons.
"To be back here right now, it just feels surreal," Medved explained. "All I wanted was an opportunity to be a Division I head basketball coach and to see it all come full circle, full circle here, is just really, really amazing."
Medved and Colorado State went 26-10 this season, upsetting No. 5 seed Memphis 78-70 in the first round and losing 72-71 in the second round to No. 4 seed Maryland on a buzzer-beating bank shot. This was the third time in seven years under Medved that the Rams hit the 25-win mark and made the NCAA Tournament out of the Mountain West, perennially one of the strongest mid-major conferences in the country.
One of the questions from the local media - and one that the Gophers have been facing since St. Thomas jumped up to Division I - will they start scheduling the Tommies and make it a hometown rivalry? Medved says he's all-in.
"It'd be fun," says Medved who says he has talked to St. Thomas coach Johnny Tauer. "I know if you play St. Thomas, you better buckle up because they're really good, but I could see that happening. I can't promise it's gonna be next year, but I could see that happening."
Medved will make $3 million in the first of his six years in the deal, with a $100,000 raise each year. There are also incentives for making the NCAA Tournament or high finishes in the Big Ten Conference. There is also a $2 million pool for Medved's assistant coaches.
The 51-year-old Medved has been a head coach for 12 seasons, including four years at Furman and a one-year stop at Drake. He’s from Roseville, a suburb just a few miles from the Minnesota campus where he earned degrees in kinesiology and sport management. Medved was once a team manager for the Gophers under coach Clem Haskins, who led them to their only Final Four appearance in 1997. He started his coaching career later that year as an assistant at the Division III level at Macalester before assistant positions at Furman, Minnesota and Colorado State.
One of the so-called challenges at the University of Minnesota would be the nearly century old Williams Arena. Every year the calls to replace or upgrade the aging arena get louder, but Medved says he doesn't see it that way.
“We've all been there before," Mevded explains. "When that place is packed, there's a certain energy in there that's different, you're on (more of) a stage than anywhere you go. There's ghosts in Williams Arena. Know what I mean? In a good way."
Medved received a contract extension last year with a significant raise that paid him a $1.7 million salary this season and option years that carried the deal through the 2030-31 season. He went 143-85 with the Rams, the second-best winning percentage in Colorado State program history. He is 222-173 in his 12-year career.
Minnesota bottomed out at 9-22 overall and 2-17 in the Big Ten in 2022-23, before making strides in 2023-24 with a spot in the NIT and a 19-15 finish. This season, the Gophers were tied for the third-worst record in the conference and went 15-17 overall.
In 28 years since that lone trip to the Final Four, which was later vacated by the NCAA as part of the punishment for a pattern of academic fraud revealed in a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Minnesota has made the NCAA Tournament just seven times, with only two wins.
In the last 20 seasons, the Gophers have had a winning record in Big Ten play just once: 11-7 in 2016-17 under coach Richard Pitino.
Medved’s buyout price from Colorado State is 33% of the remaining value on his deal, about $3.7 million. Johnson, whose annual salary was $1.95 million, the lowest in the 18-team league, had a buyout of about $2.9 million. This is an expensive transition for Coyle, the AD, whose desire to return the program to relevancy on the local sports scene and in the rugged, expanded Big Ten will require a deeper financial commitment by the university with revenue-sharing coming to college sports.
Johnson had to repeatedly rebuild rosters at his alma mater in the dawn of the transfer portal era, with some of his best players lured elsewhere by more NIL money. He was a Minneapolis native with strong ties to the state, but whether he was given a fair chance or not, he wasn’t able to effectively tap into local talent as a foundation for program growth.
One of Johnson’s assistants, Dave Thorson, was previously an assistant at Colorado State under Medved and would be a natural fit on a staff that ought to be well-positioned to productively recruit a Minnesota base that consistently produces power conference-caliber players. Medved coached Minneapolis native David Roddy at Colorado State. Roddy was a first-round pick in the 2023 NBA draft who currently is on Houston’s roster.
“There’s no doubt we need somebody who embraces Minnesota,” Coyle said after Johnson’s firing. “We need somebody who’s going to generate excitement. At the end of the day, I’m a firm believer: When you’re winning games, people want to be a part of that.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.