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March 24, 2025
Medved to leave Colorado State for native Minnesota after tourney run with Rams
MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota was making plans to hire Colorado State’s Niko Medved as its next head coach on Monday, according to a person with knowledge of the decision, after the Twin Cities-area native and former student manager for the Gophers had the Rams within one basket of the Sweet 16.
The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the contract was still being finalized. Medved was the front-runner from the start for the job at Minnesota, where athletic director Mark Coyle has been eager to revitalize the struggling program. He will replace Ben Johnson, who was fired on March 13 after going 56-71 overall and 22-57 in the Big Ten Conference over four years on the job.
Colorado State went 26-10 this season after upsetting No. 5 seed Memphis 78-70 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament 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. Colorado State beat Boise State in the Mountain West championship game two weeks ago to earn the league’s automatic bid.
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 university where he earned degrees in kinesiology and sport management. Medved was 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 as an assistant at the Division III level at Macalester before assistant positions at Furman, Minnesota and Colorado State.
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.”
Good hire by Athletic Director Mark Coyle.
Wish you nothing but the best Niko Medved!
