Niko Medved was born into a family of Gophers basketball fans. Now he’s their head coach

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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The gravitation toward the Gophers for Niko Medved began even before he was born, when his father bought the season tickets that would soon spark his young son’s passion for college basketball.

With that kind of initiation, becoming the coach at Minnesota might well have been inevitable — even if part of him was still having a hard time believing the job he left Colorado State to accept was his.

“If you really believe in something and you stick with it and you get the right people who support you, anything can happen,” Medved said Tuesday at his introductory news conference packed with family members, current players, program boosters, other Gophers coaches and cheerleaders in maroon and gold.

Medved, who was hired on a six-year contract that starts at $3 million annually, couldn’t have fathomed such compensation when he enrolled at Minnesota in 1992 and became a student manager on the staff under coach Clem Haskins.

Those were the days when Williams Arena was a much harder place for opponents to leave the raised floor with a win, when Gophers basketball was one of the hottest tickets in town.

“It’s just a magical place,” Medved said.

The Barn, as it’s colloquially known, is 97 years old with an uncertain future. Followers of the Gophers are frequently divided over whether it should be demolished and replaced or just renovated to enhance the fan experience, but Medved made clear that he’s far more focused on recruiting, staff and community support than the age of the main stage. The Gophers, after all, have a sparkling practice facility that opened in 2018.

“When that place is packed, there’s a certain energy in there that’s different than anywhere you go,” Medved said. “There’s ghosts in Williams Arena. Do you know what I mean? In a good way. I want that to be a strength of our program.”

Terms of his agreement, made public by the university on Tuesday, include annual $100,000 raises and automatic one-year extensions for each NCAA…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/niko-medved-born-family-gophers-222808908.html

Author : DAVE CAMPBELL

Publish date : 2025-03-25 22:28:00

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