After leading Colorado State to three NCAA Tournament appearances in the last four seasons, Niko Medved is coming home. Medved, a Roseville native, will become Minnesota’s next men’s basketball coach, the Pioneer Press can confirm. CBS first reported the expected news on Monday morning. He replaces Ben Johnson, who was let go earlier this month after four seasons. Medved will be tasked with rebuilding a Gophers’ program that has not made the NCAAs since 2019; that’s all four years of Johnson’s tenure and Richard Pitino’s final two years in Dinkytown. Colorado State’s season ended with a buzzer-beating loss to Maryland in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday. Medved is best-known for his offensive schemes, and Memphis coach Penny Hardaway was impressed with Medved before the 12th-seeded Rams beat his fifth-seeded Tigers in the NCAA Tournament’s first round on Friday. “He’s a brilliant basketball mind,” said Hardaway, who had a 15-year NBA playing career. “I admire what he does, because if you’re a basketball guy you see what he does and go, ‘Wow, this is pretty cool. How he added that wrinkle or how he took this option and made it (that) option. Pretty much everything he does he has a counter to it. So if you’re playing one way he’ll counter it and you just have to know that.” Johnson was fired by the U on March 13, and Medved became a leading candidate soon after that. Medved has been working on putting together a coaching staff, a source told the Pioneer Press. Assistant coach Dave Thorson is a candidate to remain at Minnesota; he previously worked on Medved’s side and was on Johnson’s staff the previous four seasons. Medved, 51, has 12 years of head coaching experience, including the last seven at Colorado State, where he has gone 143-85 (.627 winning percentage) and three trips to March Madness (2022, ’24, ’25). He took the Rams to the NIT semifinals in 2021. Medved has a career record of 222-173, starting with four years at Furman (2013-17) and one season at Drake (2017-18). Medved graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in kinesiology and sport management. He was a student manager at the U under head coach Clem Haskins and then was an associate head coach at Macalester College in St. Paul. He went on to be an assistant coach at Furman, Minnesota and Colorado State before his first head coaching job at Furman in 2013-14. Medved is currently making $1.7 million, which is less than Johnson’s $2 million. A buyout of approximately $3.75 million is owed to get Medved out of his contract through 2030-31 season.