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FORT COLLINS — Niko Medved wanted to be a hockey player.

Just like every kid growing up in Minnesota, Medved was on the ice every day. He had dreams of being a Division-I player, but that required joining a travel team in middle school and with two other brothers in the house, his parents just couldn’t make the time commitment required.

That — in eighth grade — is when he picked up basketball. His father, Miro, a Slovenia immigrant who moved to Minnesota in his youth, had long been a season ticket holder for the Minnesota Golden Gophers basketball. Going to games at Williams Arena, affectionately known as “The Barn,” were some of Medved’s best memories growing up.

“That’s really where I just fell in love with the game,” Medved told The Denver Gazette recently.

But even then, as a teenager, Medved was always contemplative. Sure, he knew he could try and extend his playing career as long as possible at a smaller, Division-III college, but was that really what he wanted?

Medved knew he wanted to be a coach and to do that, he had to go and learn from the best. So he started out at the bottom — as a student manager at the Minnesota.

Now three decades later, Medved reached the top of the sport. On Sunday, he’ll become just the second coach in the modern era (since 1985) to lead Colorado State to multiple NCAA Tournament appearances. Whether it’s Michigan, Washington or any other high-major job that has or will come open in the next few weeks, Medved’s name will likely be mentioned.

He’s likely to have multiple suitors trying to convince him to leave Fort Collins, yet again. He’s already a household name among true college basketball fans, but is also just scratching the surface of how big he could become.

“He can go as high as he wants to,” former Rams coach and current San Jose State coach Tim Miles told The Denver Gazette.

This is how he’s gotten here:

When Medved showed up at the University of Minnesota in the early ‘90s, he really only knew one thing — if he was serious about getting into coaching, he had to be all in, right away.

A friend connected him with the men’s basketball program, which was led at the time by legendary coach Clem Haskins, who led the Gophers to more NCAA Tournament appearances than any coach in program history. Medved interviewed to be student manager and he got the position.

“I felt like if I wanted to coach, I needed to learn at the highest level and network myself at the highest level,” Medved said. “I went into it with the idea that I wanted to coach. I was gonna use that as like an internship. I just immersed myself in everything in the program.”

That’s exactly what he did and over the course of his four years as an undergrad, Minnesota went to the NCAA Tournament once and made the Final Four the year after he graduated.

“The enthusiasm around the program was at a fever pitch,” Medved said. “It was just an awesome time.”

Upon graduation, Medved had the opportunity to go be a graduate assistant at the University of North Dakota. He passed, instead taking an assistant coaching position at local, Division-III Macalester College in St. Paul.

He knew he wanted to get his master’s degree in case he ended up at a smaller college and had to do administrative work while also coaching basketball. It also allowed him to do what he always needed to do in order to be successful — network.

“I knew if I coached Division III like that as an assistant (that) I’d have an opportunity to get involved with everything — coaching, recruiting, you name it — and I was in the Twin Cities where my network was, so I could immerse myself in the basketball scene while I was going to school,” Medved said.

A few years later, he got his big break — an assistant coaching job at Furman.

Although he was far from home in Greenville, South Carolina and it was lots of hard work, it was everything he ever dreamed of.

During his time with the Paladins, Medved returned often to the Twin Cities to recruit and on those trips, he struck up a friendship with the head coach at North Dakota State, a man named Tim Miles.

It changed everything.

Medved spent seven years on Larry Davis’ staff at Furman.

In 2006, Medved appeared set to become Miles’ head assistant at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. All set to make the move, Medved found out from Miles that he was passing on the job. So, he returned to his alma mater to be an assistant for Dan Monson, but he resigned less than a month into the season and Jim Molinari was the interim coach for the remainder of the year.

Afterward, Medved got a call from Miles. He was taking the job at Colorado State and he wanted Medved to come with.

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“We just kept in touch all year and as it became evident I was getting this job, Niko was one of the first guys I hired to come with me,” Mile said. “None of the NDSU guys wanted to leave. So, we started this thing from scratch.”

Medved remembers it like it was yesterday.

“Your head is spinning,” he said. “We had so much work to do in the program. Tim was still finishing out hiring some of the staff, we’re trying to figure out our own team, we’re trying to figure out recruits. It was different.”

He quickly fell in love with Fort Collins.

“It just felt like from day one it’s such an easy place to love,” Medved said.

The job itself wasn’t easy. The Rams won seven and nine games, respectively, in Miles and Medved’s first two seasons. But Miles could tell right away that he had a future star on his hands.

“He’s an unbelievable connector with people,” Miles said. “That’s why he’s such a good coach and gets such good performance out of his guys and that’s why he’s such an excellent recruiter, too. His ability to connect and know people is just outstanding. It’s obvious. One of those total package guys. You could put him in charge of the scouting report, put him in charge of a recruiting project, put him in charge of an outreach project in the community and he just knocks it out of the park every time.”

By year six, CSU was an NCAA Tournament team. Miles left for Nebraska and Medved had an offer to become the head coach at the Minnesota-Duluth. Once again, he made the right decision to pass. He stayed an extra year as an assistant under Larry Eustachy and after the Rams made the NCAA Tournament again, Furman offered him the head coaching job.

Medved met his wife, Erica, while he was an assistant at Furman. The two got married while he was an assistant at CSU.

As they headed back to Greenville for Niko to take his first head coaching job, he asked Erica, ‘Could you ever imagine if the journey ever took (us) back here?’

It turns out, that’s exactly what was in the plans. After four years at Furman and another at Drake, Medved got the call to return to the Rams.

“It’s wild the way this life works,” he said.

The rest, as everyone in Fort Collins knows, is history.

Now in his sixth season, Medved has won 20 or more games four times. He’s about to take CSU back to the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three seasons and he’s done it in two completely different ways. That team from two years ago featured four starters from Medved’s first real recruiting class — the famous 2019 group led by David Roddy and Isaiah Stevens.

This season, Stevens is just one of two players still around from 2022. The other four starters all began their careers elsewhere, two of them at the Division-II level. The team’s sixth man, Joe Palmer, is a former Division-III transfer.

“I can’t think of a group that I’ve liked more,” Medved said. “For the new faces that we have, just how quickly the buy-in has happened and how fun of a group they are to be around and what great people they are is just awesome.”

While many believe Medved is destined to jump for a high-major job once this run is over, that’s the farthest thing from his mind.

“The older you get, you realize the focus is to just be where your feet are and make the best of what you have now and appreciate it,” Medved said.

He’s already turned down multiple offers from bigger programs to leave CSU. But it’s about more than just money for him. He and Erica have grown attached to the Fort Collins community. It’s the only home their two young daughters have really ever known and Medved can see how quickly the support has grown in recent years when he goes to Walmart on an off day and gets stopped by multiple people wanting to talk to him.

“Three years ago, I didn’t always get stopped,” Medved said. “That’s cool. Not that I always like the attention, but that shows me that more and more people are following it, they’re becoming fans. That’s what I want to do.”

For someone who was unsure if he’d ever get to this point, Medved doesn’t take this for granted. While some believe he’s reaching the limit of what’s possible to accomplish at CSU, he believes he’s just scratching the surface.

Medved may stay with the Rams for another decade, he may be gone in a month, but he’s never lost sight of why he does what he does.

“I want to come through for people who believe in me,” Medved said. “I want to do something different that’s never been done and have that sustained success and have the basketball program here be an integral fabric of the community. You know what? I think we’re doing that.”

Mar. 16—LAS VEGAS, Nev. — They aren't done yet.

Behind a third-consecutive defensive gem and another high-energy performance from Jaelen House, the No. 6 seed New Mexico Lobos played their way back in the Mountain West Tournament championship game with a wire-to-wire 74-61 semifinal win over No. 7 Colorado State.

House had 19 points, eight assists, zero turnovers, five rebounds and two steals and freshman J.T. Toppin added 16 points, nine rebounds and three blocks in front of another Lobo fan-heavy arena with an announced semifinal round (both games) attendance of 13,213 in the Thomas & Mack Center on Friday night.

"I've loved how we have turned into a terrific defensive team this tournament," UNM coach Richard Pitino said. "It's gotten better and better every single game. Colorado State is a team that doesn't turn the ball over a lot and shoots a high percentage. We were able to (force them to struggle) with both.

"Just an awesome win. Proud of our guys, and we get a chance to go against a great team (Saturday) to play for a championship."

In the 25th Anniversary season of the Mountain West, the two most decorated men's basketball teams — the Lobos and San Diego State Aztecs — will fittingly square off. The Lobos (25-9), who have four tourney titles, will be playing in their seventh championship game, but just second in the past decade. No. 5 seed San Diego State (24-9) beat No. 1 Utah State in the early semifinal to advance to its seventh-consecutive tournament title game and 16th overall.

"Well, obviously we have a high, high level of respect for their program," Pitino said of SDSU. "The level of consistency that they have built over 30 years. Obviously from Coach (Steve) Fisher to Coach Dutch (Brian Dutcher) and the staff. They just do a great job of being true to what they are ... "

"We've talked about toughness. Boise (State on Thursday) was certainly that, Colorado State (on Friday). It's going to be ramped up even more (vs. SDSU). You're playing on Saturday for a championship, so I think both teams are going to compete their butts off."

That's what the Lobos have been doing already for three consecutive days, and three straight dominant tournament wins as they make a run at becoming the first team in league history to win four games in four days for the title.

Friday night, UNM scored 22 points off 14 turnovers, blocked nine shots and held CSU to 34.3% shooting.

In three Mountain West Tournament games this week, the Lobos have:

—trailed for 41 seconds out of a possible 120 minutes (led 115:31 and tied the rest)

—scored 38 points off turnovers

—stolen the ball 25 times

—blocked 20 shots

—held three opponents (No. 11 Air Force, No. 3 Boise State, No. 7 CSU) to a combined 64-of-188 shooting (34.02%)

"I think what happens (against UNM's high-pressure defense) is you get, not just sped up physically, but you get sped up mentally," said CSU head coach Niko Medved. "I think some of the guys maybe just kind of got out of character a little bit and maybe trying to do a little bit too much in some of those situations."

UNM jumped on the Rams early, flying out to an 11-0 run before CSU scored its first bucket four minutes, 39 seconds into the game on a a Joe Palmer 3-pointer.

The Rams clawed back with forward Joel Scott, who had 20 points in the loss effort, tying the game at 25-25 with 6:48 left in the half.

The Lobos would clamp down again, holding CSU without a bucket for that final 6:48 and taking a 33-25 lead into halftime after closing the half on an 8-0 run while the Rams missed their final eight shots of the half, just like they did their first eight shots.

The second half was more of the same as UNM took its largest lead (16 points) on a Mustapha Amzil 3-pointer with 9:03 left and coasted to the win from there, including a House steal and breakaway layup with 2:31 remaining for 67-56 lead — a play that just seemed to represent the game.

"Some of them (CSU's 14 turnovers) came in really key moments where we just couldn't afford the turnover because we were down, but you can't compound," Medved said. "... We had too many turnovers that led to touchdowns tonight, right? Turnovers that just led to a direct score for them."

Joining House and Toppin in double figure scoring for the Lobos was Amzil, a reserve forward who had 10 points, two steals and three blocks in his 22 minutes off the bench. Nelly Junior Joseph had nine points and 12 rebounds.

Scott's 20 points led CSU while senior point guard Isaiah Stevens was held in check, by his lofty standards, with 13 points on 5-of-13 shooting, two assists and five turnovers.

QUICK TURNAROUND: After the game, by the time postgame media obligations were done and the team got back to the hotel, it was already 12:30 a.m. local time Saturday by the time players got to their rooms.

That's less than 15 hours from a championship game on national television with a guaranteed trip to the NCAA Tournament on the line (the Mountain West champion receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament).

The Lobos last won the Mountain West Tournament in 2014, which was also the last year the team played in the NCAA Tournament.

FAMILIAR FOE: Here is the history of SDSU and UNM in the MW championship game:

—2012: No. 2 UNM 68, No. 1 SDSU 59

—2014: No. 2 UNM 64, No. 1 SDSU 58

—2018: No. 5 SDSU 82, No. 3 UNM 75

BUBBLE TROUBLE? Entering the tournament, the consensus thought was the Lobos winning twice — vs. Air Force and Boise State — would likely be enough to earn an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament.

The problem is, that was with the assumption that several other teams would likely lose in their conference tournaments much sooner than they did, if at all.

So, even with the CSU win under their belt, the Lobos may still be on shaky ground if they don't beat the Aztecs, something neither Pitino nor Medved understand.

"After winning tonight, I don't see how they're not in the tournament," Medved said. "... I believe after tonight for sure New Mexico deserves to be in the NCAA Tournament."

NET GAINS: The Lobos moved up to No. 22 in the NCAA's NET rankings and up to 25 in KenPom.com, which would be the third best KenPom ranking in program history (KenPom dates back to 1997 season).

San Diego State is 18 in the NET.

LAS VEGAS – Right off the jump, New Mexico set a frantic, chaotic pace.

Just the way the Lobos want a game to be played, exactly what Colorado State sought to avoid.

The Rams were able to claw back from an 11-0 opening jolt by the Lobos to open Friday's semifinal matchup in the Mountain West Men's Basketball Tournament, tying the game at 23 later in the half.

An 8-0 run by New Mexico wasn't ideal either, but it wasn't an insurmountable margin if the Rams could just shoot better.

They never did, and now the Rams will await their NCAA Tournament fate from the committee after a 74-61 loss which leaves them at 24-10 on the season.

"I don't know. God, it looks to me at least like there's just not a ton of separation in seeding between so many of these teams right now," CSU coach Niko Medved said. "You never know. Obviously, another win tonight would have helped us, so I don't know. Part of the fun of it is not knowing and having that on Selection Sunday. You have no idea what your seed is going to be, where you are going to go, who you are going to play, and that's some of the beauty of it. "You know me. I'm such a competitive guy. I hated the way that -- wish we would have played better here tonight, but at the same time, this group has given us a lot, and we have to wake up tomorrow and strong chin and stick our chest out. Selection Sunday is a really, really special time. That's what these guys dream about, so we can't let this take away from that on Sunday." It wasn't just that it was an off shooting night for the Rams, but the way it came down. Not just the how, but the who.

Isaiah Stevens, Josiah Strong, Nique Clifford and Jalen Lake were a combined 0-of-17 from the field in the first half. Stevens didn't drop his first field goal until 26:19 had expired in the game. Clifford didn't hit his first until the 27:36 mark.

The pace of play wasn't too fast. The 14 turnovers the Lobos created weren't alarming. What Medved felt was New Mexico sped up some of the Rams' shots and particularly their decision making.

"That's what they do. They speed the game up and execute on both ends at that pace," Stevens said. "We were able to generate some good looks, like you said. Maybe rushed at times. We just have to settle in. "Honestly in the first half there were some shots out there we just have to hit."

Even though New Mexico played at a high-octane pace, it wasn't as if they set a blowtorch to the majority red-clad Thomas & Mack Center, but they didn't need to after forcing Colorado State into a style of game where they were comfortable, and the Rams were not.

The lone constant Colorado State had was Joel Scott inside as he muscled his way to 20 points. Even he met resistance as the Lobos blocked nine shots. Even the stuff he got had to be earned. "I mean, that's just, again, high-level basketball. It's going to be tough, especially inside the paint," Scott said. "Everyone is going to be battling in there. It's going to happen. Blocked shots are going to happen, so you just have to move on, keep playing, and they played very physical down there tonight. That's just how it is."

Stevens would rebound a bit in the game, finishing with 13 points. The Lobos had a trio in double figures led by Jaelen House and his 19. JT Toppin added 16, and Mustapha Amzil came off the bench with 10 as New Mexico becomes the first team to not have a first-round bye to make the tournament final, where it will meet San Diego State.

The No. 6 seed New Mexico Lobos (24-9, 10-8 MWC) are 2.5-point favorites in the MWC Tournament against the No. 7 seed Colorado State Rams (24-9, 10-8 MWC) on Saturday at Thomas & Mack Center. The game starts at TBA ET and airs on CBS Sports Network, with both teams hoping to move one step closer to an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament bracket. The matchup has an over/under of 154.5 points.

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New Mexico vs. Colorado State Odds & Info

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Saturday's contest between the New Mexico Lobos (24-9, 10-8 MWC) and Colorado State Rams (24-9, 10-8 MWC) squaring off at Thomas & Mack Center has a projected final score of 76-73 (based on our computer prediction) in favor of New Mexico, so it should be a competitive matchup. The game will begin at TBA ET on March 16.

According to our computer prediction, Colorado State projects to cover the 3.5-point spread in its matchup against New Mexico. The over/under has been set at 153.5, and the two sides are projected to go under that total.

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Spread & Total Prediction for New Mexico vs. Colorado State

New Mexico's record against the spread so far this season is 20-11-0, while Colorado State's is 15-15-0. In terms of going over the point total, games involving the Lobos are 16-15-0 and the Rams are 12-18-0. The two teams combine to score 159.2 points per game, 5.7 more points than this matchup's total. In the past 10 games, New Mexico has a 5-5 record against the spread while going 5-5 overall. Colorado State has gone 4-6 against the spread and 6-4 overall in its last 10 matches.

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