Colorado State's Medved on NIL, Transfer Portal

[Jason Svoboda]

Always like seeing perspective from fellow mid-major coaches:

How chaotic has it been from when the transfer portal opened during the NCAA Tournament until now?

Medved: I’m usually pretty good at finding adjectives, but I don’t really even have one for this. It’s unprecedented, kind of, where we’re at right now. It’s all over the country, but our sport, it’s really, really challenging that way. You haven’t stopped. We played five games in eight days. Unbelievable ride here this season, the end of the year. Man, everything has just been chaos. I haven’t even had a step back to decompress yet with that, but I think the way it works right now, I tell people two days in April would be like two or three months in recruiting before. Maybe longer than that. Things happen so fast. It’s like speed-dating. Obviously, NIL is a major, major factor right now, especially at our level with recruiting. But there’s also a lot of opportunity. Unprecedented movement right now in college athletics and our sport. … There’s going to be a lot of turnover, so there’s opportunities in that as well. I think the hard part, the challenging part is (No.) 1, the NIL piece is a major part of this. But I think (No.) 2, how are you able to do that while still maintaining the values and the things you really want out of your program? The kinds of players, the kinds of people that fit what you’re about. One thing I know, if you try to get away from that, you’re not going to be successful in the long run.

How important is the NIL piece and how do you feel about where your program sits in NIL?

Medved: It’s very important. To say anything else would be disingenuous. It’s been at the forefront. I think it’s at the forefront now in a way it’s never been. It’s discussed openly. It’s part of it. You have to have it to be successful. I think we’ve really made some strides in that area, but we have work to do to compete at the level we expect to compete at and I know our fans expect to compete at. I say that because I believe we can do it, but it’s also the message to our fans that this is real. This is something we have to get behind. Sometimes maybe even changing the way they think about it. I think that hopefully they know us, that we’re going to continue to bring in the types of young men that they like to cheer for and represent us in the way they do. We were able to do that last year in the transfer portal. We want to continue to do the same thing. It’s real. We’ve made a lot of progress here, but we have a lot of work to do, too, to get to the level that we want to continue to compete at.

Niko Medved Q&A: Colorado State basketball coach talks extension, NIL, recruiting and more

It's been a busy offseason for the Colorado State men's basketball team. The Coloradoan sat down with coach Niko Medved to talk about it.

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