Gophers men’s basketball coach hire expected soon, with Colorado State’s Niko Medved the favorite

The Gophers are preparing to hire their next men’s basketball coach soon, with Colorado State’s Niko Medved as the favorite to be the next leader of the program, the Star Tribune learned from multiple sources.

Medved was targeted early in the search process by Gophers athletic director Mark Coyle after Ben Johnson was fired last Thursday, following a Big Ten tournament loss against Northwestern.

Former Gophers assistant Dave Thorson could remain on staff. Thorson, the interim coach, was with Medved at Drake and Colorado State.

Colorado State (25-9) earned the No. 12 seed in the West Region to face No. 5 seed Memphis (29-5) in Seattle in the NCAA first round this coming Friday.

But the timeline for the Gophers might be within the week. Coyle talked Friday about being fully aware the next coach needs to be hired before March 24, when the transfer portal opens.

Current Gophers players are already allowed to enter the portal after the coaching change. Of the possible returners, the Gophers have already talked to freshman Isaac Asuma about staying.

“With the timing of the search, obviously we want to be very efficient and move quickly,” Coyle said Friday. “Because of the transfer portal and because of the collective NIL and institutional NIL. We want to have those conversations quickly.”

The Gophers' 2025 recruiting class signed by Johnson in November was highly regarded with Inglewood (Calif.) center Parker Jefferson, SoCal Academy wing Jacob Ross and Philadelphia Penn Charter guard Kai Shinholster.

Jefferson, a 6-10, four-star recruit, told the Star Tribune on Sunday he was going to see who the new hire is before deciding whether to stick with his letter of intent with the Gophers.

On Saturday, Medved led Colorado State to its first Mountain West tournament title in 22 years with a 69-56 victory over Boise State.

“It’s surreal,” Medved said in the postgame news conference. “What an incredible story. I mean, this team, the legacy of this team is going to live on forever.”

Medved, who was not asked in that news conference about the Gophers' job, has won 25 games in three of the past four seasons. The Rams are making their third NCAA appearance in four seasons and their second consecutive, Colorado State’s first back-to-back NCAA selections since 2012 and 2013.

The Rams enter March Madness as one of the hottest teams in the country with a 10-game winning streak.

“When you believe in that and believe in the process, great things can happen,” Medved said of the Rams, who also finished runner-up to New Mexico in the regular season after being picked for seventh in the Mountain West preseason poll. “Just to see it happen and manifest the way that it did. It’s crazy. They just keep getting better.”

The 51-year-old Roseville graduate was a Gophers student manager under Clem Haskins. Medved got his coaching start at Macalester in 1997 and first full-time Division I assistant job in 1999 at Furman in Greenville, S.C. He became a Gophers assistant during the 2006-07 season, during which head coach Dan Monson was fired and Jim Molinari took over as interim coach.

Experiencing adversity firsthand with the Gophers and as a Colorado State assistant (2007-13), Medved learned how to accomplish a tough rebuild. While first running his own program at Furman, he won 20 games total in two seasons from 2013-15. Success soon followed, though, with Furman winning a combined 42 games in the next two seasons under Medved, and a Southern Conference regular-season title in 2017.

In 2017-18, Drake saw a 10-win improvement from 7-24 to 17-17 in Medved’s one season leading the Bulldogs.

That was when Medved lured Thorson, a legendary Minnesota high school coach at DeLaSalle, to join him on Drake’s staff. They remained together at Colorado State from 2018-21 before Thorson returned to become Johnson’s assistant with the Gophers.

While at Colorado State, Medved and Thorson helped orchestrate a significant turnaround from 12 wins in Year 1 to back-to-back 20-win seasons in 2019-20 and 2020-21.

Medved was named Mountain West coach of the year by the media in 2021, and he reached his first NCAA tournament the following year.

That 2021-22 Colorado State team featured former Breck star David Roddy, who would become an NBA first-round draft pick. Roddy was recruited by Thorson.

Also with the Rams that season was current Wisconsin All-Big Ten first team forward John Tonje, who eventually transferred to Missouri before joining the Badgers.

The Rams' leading scorer this season is Nique Clifford (19.0 ppg), who is projected as a potential NBA lottery pick.

Last year, Medved received a contract extension through 2030-31 with a starting annual base salary of $1.7 million. His buyout is about $3.8 million, or 33% remaining on his contract.

With the Gophers, Johnson finished 56-71 in four seasons heading the program, including 22-57 in Big Ten play and only one postseason appearance — an NIT second-round appearance in 2024. They did not make the 2025 NIT field announced Sunday.

“It’s our job to find someone who can compete at the highest level and have success,” Coyle said earlier in the week about the next coach’s qualifications. “There’s no reason why we can’t compete for NCAA tournament berths and Big Ten championships. Our goal is to find someone who embraces Minnesota.”