'Important to be relevant': Gophers AD calls Medved hire 'critical'

Mark Coyle explained why he fired Ben Johnson and went in a new direction with Niko Medved.

Niko Medved at his Gophers introductory press conference. | Minnesota Gophers

University of Minnesota athletics director Mark Coyle admitted Thursday he felt "a lot of pressure" to get the men's basketball head coach hire right. Speaking in a wide-ranging interview on KFAN on Thursday, Coyle elaborated on the pressure to get the right person for the role and the process into hiring Niko Medved as the program's next head coach.

"Towards the end of February, beginning of March we felt like we were going to have to make a change if things didn't get better. When we lost at Rutgers, and we lost in the first round of the Big Ten tournament, we just felt like the time was now to make that change," Coyle said.

Minnesota fired Ben Johnson hours after the Gophers were eliminated by Washington in the first round of the Big Ten tournament. Similarly, Coyle didn't wait long after Medved's Colorado State Rams were eliminated by Maryland in the second round of the NCAA Tournament to hire the Roseville, Minn. native.

"We had a list of coaches and obviously Niko's going to be on that list because of what he's done at Colorado State. What he did at Drake. What he did at Furman. The fact that he's a two-time graduate helps," Coyle explained.

"We talked very early, on I think Thursday (March 13) when I got back from Indianapolis. He said he was interested and I said I wanted to be very respectful of the Mountain West Conference tournament. Didn't think he was going to win it but he won. We talked throughout that and talked to his agent. Once they got to the NCAA Tournament and that all unfolded, we felt really comfortable with him."

Since Coyle took over as Gophers athletics director, Minnesota has made the NCAA Tournament just twice (2017 and 2019). With little success over the past six years, the pressure has been mounting to turn the program around and become competitive again.

"We feel like we have to be relevant in men's basketball, women's basketball, football, men's hockey. We feel like those sports, it's critical to be relevant with the changes that are going on," said Coyle. "That doesn't mean we're not focused on wrestling or swimming and diving, we care very much about all those sports. ... I feel like in those five major sports, you got to be relevant.

"Keegan Cook in volleyball doing really good things. You got [P.J. Fleck] in football doing really good things. We just talked about [Dawn Plitzuweit] and what she's doing with the women's basketball program. Bob Motzko had great success in St. Cloud. He's come here, been to two frozen fours. No. 1, No. 2 most of the year. Tough loss in the NCAA Tournament this year. So we felt like men's basketball, we got to step that up."

Medved has a difficult task ahead of him, essentially having to completely rebuild the Gophers roster that featured just two scholorship players when he took over March 24. Since then, Medved has picked up commitments from transfers Jaylen Crocker-Johnson and B.J. Omot.

"We are fully committed to men's basketball," Coyle declared. "We are allocating a lot of money to men's basketball. We feel like it's critically important to be relevant in that sport. And by relevant, being in the NCAA Tournament, being on the front page of the paper for all the right reasons."