Gophers coaching search can advance with Niko Medved’s Colorado State falling in NCAA Tournament – Twin Cities

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The Gophers’ effort to bring in a new men’s basketball coach might have had a big domino fall in Seattle on Sunday.

Colorado State and its head coach Niko Medved — the U’s top candidate for the job — lost a heartbreaker, 72-71, to Maryland in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Colorado State senior Jalen Lake hit a 3-pointer from the wing to give the Rams a 71-70 lead with six seconds left. But Maryland freshman star Derik Queen made a buzzer beater for the win that kept Medved’s team from the Sweet 16.

With the Rams season now done, the U’s work to sign Medved, which was already advanced, could speed up in the next few days.

Medved has taken Colorado State to three NCAA Tournaments over the last four years, but this year’s run ended at the hands of the second-place team in the Big Ten regular season. Maryland, an 8-point betting favorite, trailed 37-30. Then the fourth-seeded Terrapins got hot from deep in the second half to erase the deficit and barely edged Medved and the Rams.

Medved impressed TBS commentator Robbie Hummel on Sunday.

“They run good stuff (on offense),” the former Purdue and Timberwolves player said on the broadcast. “That mixture of the spread, you get some John Beilein with some of the Princeton stuff he used to run. Niko Medved, he can carve you up. That ball is going to move side to side.”

Medved emerged as the leading candidate for the Gophers’ job more than a week ago, but the U needed to be patient after his Rams team won the Mountain West Conference tournament title and earned its automatic bid for March Madness.

Colorado State was one of the hottest teams in the country — winning 11 straight games, each by at least eight points — and that continued in the opening round. The 12th-seeded Rams were one of the few double-digit seeds to win its first-round game, a 78-70 win over No. 5 Memphis on Friday.

Medved led the Rams to its first win in the tournament’s Round of 64 since 2013; it was his third appearance in March…

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Source link : https://www.twincities.com/2025/03/23/gophers-coaching-search-can-advance-with-niko-medveds-colorado-state-falling-in-ncaa-tournament/

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Publish date : 2025-03-24 01:19:00

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