Everything that Niko Medved said folowing Minnesota's overtime win over Green Bay
The Minnesota Golden Gophers needed all 40 minutes plus five minutes of overtime to defeat the Green Bay Phoenix on Saturday night at Williams Arena. Minnesota head coach Niko Medved spoke with the media after the game, and here’s what he had to say.
Opening Statement:
Medved: You know, I’ll start by giving Green Bay a lot of credit. I told our guys last night and today, I said we’re going to get a really, really spirited effort from them. They had a teammate go down in the first four minutes of the game the other night against St. Thomas, and it was one of those deals — without talking about it — it was a pretty rattling deal.
And I think it really kind of shattered them, and I knew they would rally and respond. They played really, really physical. They played really hard.
And, you know, of all the games we’ve had, all the films, they had not played a possession of zone, and they kind of did a great job of—every time down they would change defenses, right? It could be man, it could be this 1-2-2. Really, really kind of frustrated us early, took us out of rhythm. But our guys did compete on the defensive end.
We hung in there. But a little bit of frustration I think kind of set in with the guys, and I think it’s good to go through that. I told them, hey, this is what basketball is. Games are like that sometimes, and you’ve got to find a way to be resilient and find different ways to win. And halftime, second half was a little bit better for us.
But, man, I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone at the free-throw line there. I’m not going to lie. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like that. And these are guys I think who are good free-throw shooters. I don’t know if we got a little bit rattled there down the stretch.
But having said that, you know, Chauncey—people might have thought the shot… we knew right away it wasn’t going to count. And so right away it’s like, hey, we’ve got to win this five-minute game. And to our guys’ credit, I thought in the overtime guys stepped up. Kroc made a couple of huge shots, knocked down our free throws, and we found a way to get out of here with a win.
Q: Did you tell a guy like Jalen, when the shots aren’t falling, “keep firing away”?
Medved: Yeah. I mean, it’s a fine line. And I think with me it’s probably a little different because I’ve coached Jalen. Here’s a guy who shot 41 percent from three in Mountain West play last year, right? He’s done it before. But they’re not going in. And I think sometimes the worst thing you can do is just try to shoot yourself out of it.
So no, I think you’ve got to have a mindset—play the next possession, keep shooting good shots. And he’ll snap out of it. I don’t have any doubt about that. And again, when it mattered the most tonight, he made a couple of huge plays.
Q: You just trusted him, even though sometimes you say it’s the worst thing to shoot your way out. You trusted him to shoot his way out of it?
Medved: Yeah, I don’t know if he shot his way out of it. He took those ones early in the game—he took three of them really early. I don’t think he stopped shooting threes after that. But sometimes when the game’s on the line and you’re open, he had the guts to step up and knock it down. You’ve got to play smart but you can’t play scared. That was a shot he needed to shoot in that moment. And the biggest one went in.
Q: Rob had some foul troubles throughout the game. This was a game he probably had an opportunity to flex some muscle inside. How much did that throw a monkey wrench in the game?
Medved: It threw a little bit of a wrench. Our physicality changes when he’s not in the game. Just no rhythm tonight—foul, foul, and then picked up his third again and couldn’t get in a groove. But again, those things happen. It’s basketball. You get into foul trouble. Maybe see something you hadn’t seen all year. That’s what happened tonight.
Q: You mentioned the free throws. Is it something you just throw out the window, or how do you avoid it becoming a bigger issue?
Medved: I don’t know. I don’t have the stats in front of me—wasn’t there one game we shot like 85%? We’ve got guys who’ve made them before. I’m not worried about Cade Tyson missing free throws. He missed them tonight. But sometimes it just felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. We work on free throws every day. Our teams in the past have always been good free-throw shooting teams. Tonight was just one of those nights. Maybe some frustration compounded things. But we’ll be okay.
Q: This was kind of the first game you didn’t jump out to a big lead. Any hangover after the Missouri game? Or just execution?
Medved: No, I don’t think so. Basketball is streaky. It’s unrealistic to think you’re going to jump teams right away every night. I thought defensively early we were pretty good. It was 8–2. We missed the free throw on the and-one. Just after that, we got stuck in the mud offensively. Couldn’t get a rhythm. And give them credit.
Q: Green Bay threw a lot of looks at you defensively. What do you need to look for to break through on that?
Medved: You can only practice what you’ve seen—you can’t practice the exception to the rule. Early in the season someone might throw something at you they haven’t shown. That’s what happened. Same with Missouri—it slowed us down but second half we attacked it beautifully. It’ll be good for us. With 11 new players, first time through some of this stuff. We’ll learn from it.
Q: What was the message to the team in the locker room?
Medved: Same thing—how many guys were frustrated tonight? Coaches were frustrated. But I thought we battled. No one pointed fingers. Guys picked each other up. Winning is hard. This was a weird game, didn’t go our way, but we found a way to win.
Q: Some fans are already asking, “How do we go to overtime with Green Bay?” Seems like you’re saying blowing teams out by 20 every night doesn’t necessarily help you get better.
Medved: There’s probably some truth to that. But look around the country—scores like this happen every night. College hoops is hard. Every season, even with the best teams, you get games that are hard to explain. Tonight was one of those. They played hard and took us out of kilter. Maybe we’ll learn something. But I don’t get caught up in the margin. I’m a process guy. We’ve got to get better. Blowing teams out all the time—yeah, that’s more fun, but that’s not how it works.
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