Everything Niko Meded said on Monday as Gophers continue to prep for 2025-26 season
Minnesota men’s basketball head coach Niko Medved met with the Minnesota media on Monday as the Golden Gophers continue to prep for their 2025-26 season. Here’s everything that Medved had to say.
Q: How much is the first official ball practice a continuation of the work done over the summer?
Medved: “Well, you said it, it’s not like it. You know I’m old enough to remember obviously the October 15th date when we would start. What’s so different now is we have so many more hours with these guys. So obviously we’ve been going at it this summer and here in the fall. I think what is different now is now we’re officially in the 20 hours a week. So the intensity, the length of what we’re doing definitely ramps up. It’s gonna be cool. We’ll start in Williams Arena today, which is awesome. We hadn’t been in there a ton, but you know, be purposeful about being in the arena probably at least two times a week, sometimes more, because that’s where we play. I think you could look at the calendar and start seeing, you know, exhibitions only what, a little over three weeks away. And so I think the guys can start seeing the season on the horizon here.
Q: What do you like most about this roster?
Medved: “Man, I just really, I’ve said it over and over again, but I just really love them as human beings. I mean, I think their approach so far has been terrific. They’ve come in every day, they’ve been really, really coachable, tried to do what we ask them to do. And so just the way they’ve gone about their business every day really, really excites me. And I think because of that, this group is gonna continue to get better.”
Q: What major things have you accomplished so far in building a team culture?
Medved: “I think from a culture perspective, I think it’s just the unselfishness, the way we go about our business every day, the way we treat people. I think those things have been really good. Just the daily approach and the habits of how these guys work, I’m starting to see those things. We spend a lot of time in the early summer installing our offense. I think kind of as you’re starting to teach the things that you want to see and you emphasize seeing the buy-in there, I think that’s a cultural thing for us. And I’ve seen a team that’s really played unselfish so far in the summer. Now, the lights aren’t on, there’s no opponent across from us, but I think those things from a cultural perspective have been really encouraging so far.”
Q: How would you describe the team’s playing style in terms of spacing and ball movement?
Medved: “You know, spacing, ball movement, I think you’ll see a team that, you know, off the ball, you don’t see a lot of standing around. There’s a lot of guys who are involved in what we’re doing. And so when the ball is moving and people are moving, I think that’s been a staple of what we do. It’s one thing to do it in the summer, it’s a lot different thing to do it as you start really getting up and down and you get fatigued, and there’s another opponent across from you, and you know, figuring out that balance where, you know, sometimes we want to take the first available great shot. I am the head coach, I do get to decide what a great shot is, but again, this is a game where you want your players, you know, I’m not here to tell them what to do, I’m trying to teach them how to think. And so just how we get that balance of being aggressive but still playing unselfish is just something that’s gonna take time. I think the fans will see clearly the way we move the ball, the way we space, the way we cut.
Q: On what he wants to see defensively
Medved: I’m hopeful that we have some versatility, you know, in particular on the wings when you got some length, some guys who can guard different guys, a toughness, a grit about us, the way we communicate. I think that’s something we started to do at the end of the summer, and it’s really been an emphasis for us here in the fall. I think a lot like offense, I think you have to figure out as a coach kind of what some of your strengths are and what might be potential shortcomings, and you know, who can pressure the ball, who maybe can’t be as aggressive. Yeah, again, who are our disruptors, you know, those kinds of things. Rebounding, you know, who’s, how are we gonna rebound? What are some things that we can switch? Just learning how to read and play off each other’s strengths and weaknesses, but again, we’re a team that’s gonna play mostly man-to-man. We’ll play some zone, but right now we’re just at the infant stages of doing what we do.”
Q: How does the physicality of the Big Ten influence your team’s approach?
Medved: “I think the Big Ten, arguably, is the most physical league in the country. I’ll say this, I think it’s something that people who’ve watched us, especially the last two to three years, we’ve been a pretty physical team. You know, I was talking to some coaches in our league on the road this summer, and Boise State, you know, those guys were like, gosh, you know, it just felt like you guys were fouling us on every possession, and I’m like, well, that’s good, you know, that means we were doing our job. And so we have to play incredibly physically, even though we’re a little bit undersized, and that’s something that has to be a staple of what we’re doing.”
Q: Is there a standard theme for the first few weeks of practice, or does it build on summer work?
Medved: “I think it’s almost really just kind of a continuum, a continuity of what we’ve been doing. You know, I don’t make today any bigger than what it is. Again, the guys have been going at it pretty good. They can maybe start to see the season on the horizon, but it’s, we’re just continuing to do what we’ve done. And it’s just, listen, you guys said it’s about today, right? Yesterday, I was at a thing with my family, and my family’s laying out the Big Ten schedule. Yeah, I can see this or whatever, and I’m like, they know it better than I do, you know, because I honestly, you just kind of focus on today, right? What do we got to do today to get better? We still got a long ways to go to become the best version of ourselves.”
Q: What games are players are excited about?
Medved: “They’re asking about the Big Ten, and they’re asking when the times are going to come out. I believe that’s right. We open up at home against Indiana, and then I think we go to Purdue. I haven’t even looked any further than that. I may have seen, I think we’ve got Iowa and Wisconsin at home earlier in the calendar, but I don’t know, they were laying out all this stuff, and who we go to and who comes here, and honestly, I look at it and glance, but that just seems so far down the horizon right now.”
Q: On Isaac Asuma
Medved: “He’s obviously, he’s a really talented young man, but he’s just an exceptional dude. I mean, I just love being around this guy every day. He’s got a great smile about him. Yeah, you see him, if he were to walk in here, he’d make you think that you were his best friend, and he’s that way with everybody, doesn’t matter whether it’s my children, somebody he ran into at the State Fair. If you see him today, he’s out there shooting on the court. It’s kind of the same thing every day. He just reminds me a lot of the guys that we’ve had that have really had success, that he’s a really talented guy, he’s a great human being. He just needs to continue to get better and kind of find that fire, you know, in him and that confidence that he can really be a guy. And I think you’ll start to see him grow that way this year.”
Q: Is the team being undersized by design, or is it a challenge of roster building?
A: “I think it’s a challenge of the roster building, you know, as you got to put a whole new team together. You’ve got some of the realities of NIL and where are you spending your resources and all those things too. So yeah, we’re a little bit undersized, but I think we got some tough guys, you know, and listen, just because a guy’s big doesn’t mean he’s a great rebounder. You know, he’s a smart player, and he’s a tough player and all those things, so, but yeah, I do think we’re gonna be a little bit undersized at times this year in this league, but that’s okay, you know what I mean. We got to find a way to mitigate that and find what our strengths are and how can we leverage those.”
Q: How does Jalen contribute to communicating messages to the players?
Medved: “Awesome, I mean, I tell you what, like, that young man has had as good of a summer and fall as I could have expected. He’s just been awesome in every way. I mean, the guys would tell you, and the coaches who hadn’t coached him before, he’s just a warrior on both ends of the floor. He’s a terrific defensive player, he’s really physical, you know, he’s shooting the ball well from three, you know, finds ways to score, you know, especially against smaller guys, and the way he leads, he’s not the most vocal guy in the world, you know, he’s vocal when he needs to be, but just the example that he’s set for how you do things, it’s been hard to ask more from him.”
Q: Is there potential to add one more player to the 2026 recruiting class?
Medved: “Possibility for one more, potentially, it’s got to be the right guy, you know, we’re not trying to make it up. We’ve got some guys that have visited that we really, really like, and so we’ll see kind of where that goes. But you know, after that, we’re pretty happy with the class that we have.”
Q: On the Gophers’ recruiting philosophy from year to year
Medved: “You know, honestly, without getting into the weeds, I think some of that’s going to be depending upon what happens here with the NCAA. We could be in a situation where we go to this five-for-five, you know, five-for-five ruling here, could even happen as early as October, that’s gonna change everything, you know, we’re, everybody gets a fifth year, just imagine that scenario if that rule were to pass this year, what that’s gonna look like, you know, in the spring and moving forward. So I think there’s a little bit maybe of a holding pattern for everybody kind of to see where this goes. We always want to recruit high school players, but how many, I think there’s just, we’ll have to see where this goes.
Q: His thoughts on the potential five-for-five rule
You know what I’ve learned through this, it doesn’t really matter where I come down, you know what I mean, it is what it is, right, things are gonna happen, and you’ve got to evolve. So I don’t know if my opinion really matters. It’s just a matter of time. I mean, there you just look at all the waivers that were going on all over the country in every situation. Hopefully, we get to a point where there’s just, the waiver stuff, you know, is over, except for maybe some extenuating circumstances, a medical redshirt, maybe a coaching change or something like that, potentially. But you know, you get five to play five, which meaning kind of redshirt doesn’t even really exist anymore, is kind of the theory, so I think it’s inevitable that that’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of whether it happens this year, next year, and you know, obviously if it’s gonna happen this year, it has to happen before football season’s over.”
Q: Is there anything about this job that you didn’t know when you accepted it in March?
Medved: “Not really, I mean, nothing that really stands out, you know, to me, obviously, I think I had a, you know, it’s my fourth head coaching job, the third one at a place where I had been before, and you know, have some familiarity with, and you know, I’ve said it over and over again, and I knew it was there, it stands out to me, just the underlying support there is for the U. People really love the U. I think there’s a lot of people in this community that been here a long time that do have an affinity for Gopher basketball, and really are looking for something to get back and cheer about on a consistent basis. They’ve had some success, but they want that success consistently. So I don’t know that there’s anything that’s really surprised me, other than, you know, maybe there’s daily things here and there, but nothing that really stands out.”
Q: Are there any injury or illness concerns going into practice, and how many players do you ideally want to play during the season?
Medved: “To your second part of the question, I think most of the time, coach is gonna, you know, we’re gonna play nine guys, or I think you’d like to see a nine-person rotation, could there be ten in a pinch, yeah, I’ve sometimes that can be challenging, but there is probably a scenario where we could play ten on this year, but typically it’s gonna be nine and possibly ten, especially in the frontcourt, you know, you might have room for another player. From a health perspective, we’re actually probably healthier than we’ve ever been. BJ Omot just got cleared fully on Friday, so this is his first action in over a year. I mean, he’s been building up, but getting him back out there has been great for us. So now as we start practice, he’s gonna be out there, that gives us another player that we’re really, really excited about. Robbie Vaihola, too, he’s been going about full go for about three weeks here, so honestly, this is about as healthy as we’ve been. Chance Stephens, he’s still, you know, is still dealing with an illness that he has not been able to do anything yet, you know, I don’t really know where that’s gonna lead, and then Max Gizzi, who we took, who’s just been exceptional, especially in practice with these guys, he broke his foot right at the end of the summer, had surgery, so we’re probably looking at probably another six weeks or so before we get him back, but other than that, honestly, it’s probably about as healthy as we’ve been.”
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