New-look Gophers men’s basketball comes together under coach Niko Medved

Gophers guard Isaac Asuma knows that being a 19-year-old “vet” on a college basketball team is a bit of an anomaly.

But, out of the Gophers men’s roster, the sophomore has played the most minutes on Williams Arena’s hardwood.

Nearly all the Gophers are new kids — or coaches — on the block.

Nine transfers and two freshmen join coach Niko Medved in his first season in charge. Only Asuma and redshirt freshman Grayson Grove return from the 2024-25 roster.

It’s nearly a blank slate for a team that is projected to finish 16th out of 18 teams in a competitive Big Ten, after last season’s 12th-place finish led to the firing of coach Ben Johnson. But at Friday’s media day, the new-look team insisted it has its eyes on a rebuild and overperforming those tempered expectations.

“I think we just want to come out here and win and bring back Minnesota basketball,” said senior guard Langston Reynolds, a transfer from Northern Colorado. “We’re going to be aggressive, we’re going to be tough. We’re just going to make the Barn fun again.”

Medved’s takeover of the program is a return home for the Roseville native, who began his coaching career as a Gophers student manager. After helping turn around programs at Furman, Drake and Colorado State, Medved is back in Dinkytown — and he brought a piece of the Rams with him.

Crocker-Johnson has been quizzed by his new Gophers teammates, who were curious about Medved’s standards, his terminology, his expectations of defense and spacing.

“Last year, I was asking a lot of questions, trying to learn from from Niko,” Crocker-Johnson said. “[I’ve been] really just trying to take honor in that role and get my guys on the same page.”

Asuma and Grove also got a sneak peek at Medved’s coaching.

As the roster turned over in the spring, the pair couldn’t do team workouts since “we didn’t really have a team,” Grove said. But a few times a week, the coaches would run individual workouts for Asuma and Grove.

Asuma described Medved’s coaching style as “intense” and “high energy.” His new teammates cited Medved’s track record of player development as a selling point on transferring to Minnesota.

Asuma is prepared to drive an offense that Crocker-Johnson said looks “pretty similar” to what the Rams implemented: fast in transition, with an emphasis on ball movement and cutting.

“We’re going to make the defense work for all 30 seconds, for sure,” Crocker-Johnson said.

Senior guard Chansey Willis Jr. took a wandering path up the ranks of college basketball — from Division II Saginaw Valley State to JUCO Henry Ford College to a breakout Division I season at Western Michigan. But that path never took him more than a few hours from where he grew up in Detroit.

“It’ll still get cold, but it don’t get cold like Minnesota,” Willis said.

To Willis, part of the appeal of the Gophers was that he would be forced to get uncomfortable. “I wanted to try something new,” Willis said, “to show, you know, I can be away from home.”

But besides Omot, all of Medved’s transfers have roots outside of Minnesota.

“I think one thing that’s really helped us is that almost everybody is new here in some way or another,” Tyson said. “Isaac and Grayson, they’re not new to Minnesota, but they’re new to the coaching staff, just like a lot of other guys, and even the coaching staff is new. So we’re all learning together.”

“Learning together” looks a lot like eating together, players said.

Tony’s Diner in Dinkytown was a repeated favorite. Willis even gave it a Detroit diner comparison, Coney Island. J.D. Hoyt’s Supper Club earned a nod for more high-end occasions.

“I don’t think I’ve ever really been to go get something to eat without another guy with me, to be honest, over the past few months,” Tyson said.

“It don’t even feel like we’ve all transferred,” Omot said. “It feels like we played with each other before.”