Meet Drake’s Niko Medved

(St. Louis, MO) – Des Moines seems excited by the hiring of new basketball coach Niko Medved. Drake’s new coach put together a solid resume as head coach at Furman and as an assistant at several Division 1 programs. The 43-year-old Medved led Furman to a Southern Conference regular season title and his team is still involved in the CollegeInsider.com Tournament.

Monday’s official ‘meet and greet’ helped the locals get to know the Minnesota native. His 62-70 career coaching record doesn’t excite you except when you look at the season totals of nine, 11, 19 & 23. By year three, his Paladin team was competing for the SoCon championship.

University President Marty Martin and Director of Athletics Sandy Hatfield Clubb set the tone for Monday’s press conference, as they were genuinely excited about Medved’s signing. Martin lists some conditions that Medved met.

 

 

This will be the second head-coaching job for Medved who has assisted at Colorado State, Minnesota and at Furman. His midwest roots are part of why he believes Drake is a good place for him to coach. Medved says he’s excited to build a winning program at Drake.

 

 

Long time Drake play-by-play announcer Larry Cotlar feels good about the hire. Cotlar says Medved brings a fresh approach and a breath of fresh air to the program. For the first time in several years, the university has signed a coach with a positive Division 1 coaching record.

“They talked about looking for a guy that knew how to rebuild or build the foundation of a program,” said Cotlar. “That’s exactly what he did at Furman, and he (Medved) told me academics is the number one thing. Players will have to go to class and do everything required of them or they won’t play.”

Cotlar believes Medved will connect with the current team and will also be able to successfully recruit talented players to join the Bulldog program.

“He talked about getting back to his midwest roots,” said Cotlar. “He grew up in Minnesota and he’s actually done a lot of recruiting in the midwest. He knows the midwest. He talked about recruiting Iowa, Minnesota, Chicago and Ohio. People were worried about hiring one of ‘your own guys’. I’ve always believed if a guy wins, he becomes your guy!”

Cotlar says Medved could fall into the ‘players’ coach’ category, and that he is an energetic leader.

“You get the feeling he really wants to work with the players,” said Cotlar. “He seems like a guy that wants to get along. Niko is a guy that wears his emotions on his sleeve, and players seemed to like what he had to tell them. I think he can really relate to the players. “

As with most coaching transitions, there will be changes, and junior-to-be Billy Wampler announced that he will transfer. With Wampler’s departure, Medved has three available scholarships.

Medved is unabashed in saying the time for Drake basketball is now, that he plans on building a consistently competitive program. He says his style of basketball is ‘winning basketball’. Medved says the Bulldogs will play fast.

 

 

Basketball fans know it takes more than a press conference to win games and compete for titles, but Medved, Martin and Hatfield Clubb ‘won the press conference’ and there is genuine excitement among the Bulldog faithful this offseason.

Do Good

 

Editor: Video courtesy of Drake University. Our thanks to Ty Patton for his great service to those in the media.