After leading Colorado State to three NCAA Tournament appearances in the past four seasons, Niko Medved is coming home.

Medved, a Roseville native, is Minnesota’s next men’s basketball coach, the U announced Monday afternoon. The Gophers said Medved will have a six-year contract, which will need Board of Regents approval. He replaces Ben Johnson, who was let go earlier this month after four seasons.

“Niko is a Minnesota alum with a proven head coaching track record,” Gophers Athletics Director Mark Coyle said in a statement. “He is extremely passionate about coaching and developing young men and takes great pride in being from Minnesota. He has had success everywhere he has been, and we look forward to him leading our men’s basketball program at his alma mater.”

Medved is 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, opening up the opportunity to hire Medved. He will be introduced at a news conference on Tuesday at noon at the U’s practice facility.

“I want to thank President Rebecca Cunningham, Mark Coyle and everyone involved in the search, as this really is a dream job for me,” Medved said in a statement. “I loved my time at Colorado State, and I worked with tremendous people who made a lasting impact on my life. Those are memories that I will cherish forever.

“This job was too special to pass up and when the opportunity presented itself, I had to take it,” said Medved, who has two daughters with his wife, Erica. “I grew up a Gopher about 15 minutes away from The Barn. I went to school here, was a student manager here and coached here. This is a special place, it’s home, and I cannot wait to get started.”

Medved is best-known for his offensive schemes. Memphis coach Penny Hardaway was impressed with Medved before the 12th-seeded Rams beat his fifth-seeded Tigers in the NCAA’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 at Medved’s side and was on Johnson’s staff with the Gophers for the past four seasons.

Medved, 51, has 12 years of head coaching experience, including the last seven at Colorado State, where he was 143-85 (.627 winning percentage) and made three trips to March Madness (2022, ’24, ’25). He took the Rams to the National Invitation Tournament 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).

In his first head coaching job, Johnson went 56-71 overall and 22-57 in the Big Ten Conference in four years at the U. The Minneapolis native was owed a buyout of approximately $2.9 million for the final two years left on his contract.

Medved made $1.7 million at Colorado State this season, which is less than Johnson’s $2 million. A buyout of approximately $3.75 million is owed to CSU to get Medved out of his contract through the 2030-31 season.

This makes it an expensive transition for Coyle, who let go of Pitino in favor of Johnson in 2021.

Medved graduated from the University of Minnesota with an undergraduate degree in kinesiology (1997) and a master’s in sport management (1999).

He was a student manager at the U under head coach Clem Haskins and then was an associate head coach at Division III Macalester College in St. Paul. He went on to be an assistant coach at Furman, Minnesota (2006-07) and Colorado State before his first head coaching job at Furman in 2013-14.