CBS: Grading the best and worst hires from 2018 after a full recruiting cycle (Best grade: Gophers alum Niko Medved at Colorado State)

[BleedGopher]

per CBS:

Welcome to my annual grade-the-hires-four-years-after piece. We've published it each April since 2017. As tempting as it is to immediately grade new faces in new places, the fairest way to do this is to give coaches some time to actually, you know, build a program, recruit players, establish a track record, moan about NIL, gripe off the record about the transfer portal. You know, the crucial stuff. They're now more than 100 games in, which is an appropriate amount of data.

Colo. St.

The hire: Niko Medved As you'll discover below, the 2018 hiring cycle didn't produce a lot of out-and-out successful hires, at least not to this point. Medved is an exception to that. Through four seasons with the Rams he's 77-46 (.626 win percentage) and has a 46-26 Mountain West mark. Medved recruited David Roddy and Isaiah Stevens, and by developing those two, has improved CSU's KenPom rank from 224 to 180 to 99 to 76 to 46. The Rams were a No. 6 seed in this year's NCAA Tournament but fell (as an underdog, despite being the better seed) to No. 11 Michigan. The program's 65-26 record the past three seasons is one of its best three-year runs in school history. Taking everything into account (Colorado State last won a regular-season league title in 1990), he's been the most successful addition in a multi-bid conference. The Rams have a good one here. Next step is winning a game or two in the Big Dance. GRADE: B-plus

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www.cbssports.com

Go Gophers!!

 

[Spottedmuskie]

Kenpom progression is impressive. Too bad they had to matchup against Michigan who was peaking at the right time

 

[fan of Ray Williams]

Kenpom progression is impressive. Too bad they had to matchup against Michigan who was peaking at the right time

Colorado State with 1 more rebound per game than the Gophers. 31.7 to 30.7
6.7 offensive rebounds to the Gophers 6.0 offensive rebounds
25.0 defensive rebounds to the Gophers 24.7
They obviously did a lot of other things well to go 25-6, but I always find their rebounding stats interesting.