Gophers football coach P.J. Fleck shows support for new basketball coach Niko Medved

Gophers football coach P.J. Fleck brought his staff to Tuesday’s news conference that introduced Minnesotan Niko Medved as the new men’s basketball coach.

Then he brought the successful coach, just hired away from Colorado State, to spring practice for a brief visit.

“It was great for our whole staff to be at his press conference,” Fleck said. “I told our whole staff we’re going to go, we’re going to support our whole athletic department. I told our staff: ‘A lot of you want to be head coaches. It’s great for you to watch [the] press conference live, with your coordinator, with your head coach. You need to experience that and watch it.’ ”

Medved, 51, was raised in Roseville, 15 minutes from Williams Arena. He attended the University of Minnesota and was student manager on a Clem Haskins-coached Gophers team and later was a Gophers assistant coach for a season. He also was an assistant coach at Furman and Colorado State and a head coach at Furman and Drake before becoming head coach of the Rams in 2018.

He guided Colorado State to the NCAA tournament three of the last four seasons and this month led the Rams to the Mountain West tournament title and an automatic NCAA tournament berth. They advanced to the round of 32 with a first-round victory over Memphis and lost to Maryland on a buzzer-beater Sunday night.

It’s a path Fleck wants his assistant coaches and coordinators to know and understand as they chase their aspirations.

“There are some things we can take from Colorado State and their basketball and football teams and what a great run they’ve had in the NCAA tournament,” Fleck said.

The Gophers on Tuesday held their third spring practice and their first in pads at their indoor training facility.

Fleck likened his football team to those teams in the NCAA basketball tournament games he’s watched carefully.

“You look at all the teams in the Sweet 16 right now, and they are deep,” he said. “Our depth is our advantage, period. You look at Michigan State, they’re deep. You look at Florida, they’re deep. Duke is deep, everybody off the bench. A star player goes down, and they go on a 12-2 run even after the leading scorer goes out.

“It’s unbelievable how deep some of these teams are, and we’ve told our team that the deeper we are, the better we are. If we’re not very deep, you’re not going to be very good.”

Fleck had this to say about who will replace last season’s starter, Max Brosmer, at quarterback:

It’s early.

Drake Lindsey, a redshirt freshman from Fayetteville, Ark., probably is the most advanced in a competition that includes Georgia Tech transfer Zach Pyron.

“We’ve got some guys who are growing at a rapid rate, some who are really learning just to go out and get some snaps, and then we’ve got some people who are really excelling at a high level of processing information,” Fleck said. “It’s only three days in, first day of pads. When we get to Saturday, I’ll probably have a little bit more of information. But they’re all competing against each other, which is great.”