CSU basketball hires Drake's Niko Medved to replace Larry Eustachy

Niko Medved, a popular assistant under Tim Miles at CSU, has been hired as the Rams’ men’s basketball coach, athletic director Joe Parker said in a news release Thursday.

Medved, 44, will be formally introduced at a news conference Friday at Moby Arena. Contract details have not been released.

He replaces Larry Eustachy, who resigned under pressure Feb. 26.

Medved rebuilt a struggling program at Furman, guiding the Paladins to a 23-11 record and a share of the Southern Conference regular-season title in 2016-17, the last of his four seasons as the program's head coach. He was named the Southern Conference Coach of the Year that year.

He just completed his first season at Drake, where he led the Bulldogs to a 17-17 record overall and 10-8 record and tie for third place in the Missouri Valley Conference. Drake's season ended Sunday with an 81-72 loss at Northern Colorado in the second round of the CollegeInsiders.com Tournament.

Medved's career record is 79-87 in five seasons as a head coach.

"My family and I are ecstatic to have the opportunity to return to Fort Collins and Colorado State University to become the head men's basketball coach," Medved said in the news release. "This is obviously an incredibly special place to me, and to my family. Some of the best memories I've had personally and professionally happened at Colorado State. We have tremendous leadership from the top down, and we look forward to partnering with everybody in the Fort Collins and Colorado State communities to build Colorado State basketball into one of the premier programs in the Mountain West."

Medved was one of three former assistants under Miles who interviewed for the CSU job. The other two were South Dakota coach Craig Smith and Utah assistant DeMarlo Slocum.

(More background on Medved in the video below)

Miles, who just completed his sixth season as head coach at Nebraska, said Medved will build a "complete program" at CSU and not just a winning basketball team. He'll actively engage with the university, Fort Collins and entire Northern Colorado community to build up the fan base.

"Niko will hit the ground running, because when we were there we were able to identify where we wanted to recruit, which was a little different than the previous guys," Miles said. "I think he knows where the brand is strong, and what he can recruit to.

"I think he knows it can be built there, and it can be a lasting thing."

Medved was with Miles for his five seasons at CSU from 2007-08 through 2011-12. He stayed another year to help the program and its six senior players through the transition to Eustachy. He was part of CSU’s NCAA tournament runs in 2012 under Miles and 2013 under Eustachy.

Medved, who grew up in Minneapolis, was an assistant coach at Furman and Minnesota, his alma mater, before coming to CSU.

"We are extremely excited to have Niko assume the leadership of our basketball program," Parker said in a press release. "Throughout our discussions, he showed a great understanding of what basketball means to Colorado State University and the community while demonstrating how much he has developed in his five years as a head coach. He has not only had success on the court at Furman and Drake in taking his teams to the postseason in each of the last three years, but also grew his student-athletes into young men who were also solid in the classroom and engaged in the community."

CSU, playing under two different interim coaches over the final eight games of the season, finished 11-21 overall this season and 4-14 in the Mountain West to finish 10th in the 11-team league. The overall record was the worst since 2008-09, Miles' second year at CSU.

Eleven of the Rams' 12 scholarship players could return next season, if they choose to, although at least two — MW rebounding leader Nico Carvacho, a sophomore forward, and junior guard Kris Martin, a transfer from Oral Roberts who sat out this season — said on Twitter they've received permission to talk to other schools. Other players were waiting to see who the new coach would be before exploring their options, multiple sources said.

Eustachy, 62, was in his sixth season as the Rams’ coach when he reached a resignation settlement with the university that will pay him $750,000 over the next year. He had three years remaining on his contract when he was placed on paid administrative leave Feb. 3 in the midst of the university’s second investigation into his conduct as coach in four years. His record at CSU was 121-74 with one NCAA tournament appearance and two trips to the National Invitation Tournament.

Parker, with the help of Fogler Consulting, identified five finalists for the job earlier this week after meeting last week with San Antonio Spurs assistant Becky Hammon, who said she was not interested at this time in becoming the first female head coach of an NCAA Division I men’s basketball team. Hammon, hired in August 2014, is the first full-time female assistant coach in the NBA.

Parker interviewed Montana coach Travis DeCuire Oklahoma assistant Chris Crutchfield along with Medved, Smith and Slocum on Monday and Tuesday in Chicago before making his decision. DeCuire withdrew from consideration Wednesday.

Eustachy was set to earn $1.04 million for the 2018-19 season, but Parker said March 2 he hoped to pay the Rams' next coach an annual salary closer to the Mountain West average, which was just less than $700,000 this past season.

Drake, a private school, did not disclose Medved's salary, but university President Marty Martin told reporters at his introductory news conference on March 27, 2017, that his salary would be among the top half of the Missouri Valley Conference, which would have put it at a little more than $400,000 a year.

Medved and his wife, Erica, have a 1-year-old daughter, Aly.

Follow reporter Kelly Lyell at twitter.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news and listen to him talk CSU sports at 11:35 a.m. Thursdays on KFKA radio (AM 1310) and 10:45 a.m. Saturdays on Denver’s ESPN radio (AM 1600).