Who will have a better career? Medved at Minnesota or McCollum at Iowa?

Who will have a better career? Medved at Minnesota or McCollum at Iowa?

  • Medved at Minnesota

    Votes: 62 70.5%

  • McCollum at Iowa

    Votes: 26 29.5%
  • Total voters
    88
Donate To GopherHole

I have cautious optimism we found our long awaited guy. I'm going with Medved.
 

I am very curious to see an Iowa team with a total 180 from their current identity. I can't imagine it at the moment.
 


Medved, for sure. Why even ask?

Iowa is headed for the dumps, with an winning percentage equal to their average IQ.

Minnesota is about to begin an extended era of great success, locking down all the best in-state players and being highly ranked at the beginning and end of every season.
 



Bad Gopher said:
This is a copout, but time will tell. I will say this: I think Fran was undervalued there.
Click to expand...

He wasn't in his earlier years. Maybe a power conference coach has to be pretty exceptional to avoid the fans souring on him over an extended period of time.

I have a central belief about sports fans: the better you do the better they expect you to do. If a team is poor, they want it to be decent. If a team is decent, they want it to be superior. If a team is superior, they want it to challenge for the national championship.
 

Medved took over a struggling CSU team and brought them to the tourney. McCollum took over a team that made back to back NCAA tourneys prior to him starting. Give me Medved any day of the week.
 

DinkytownDelight said:
Medved took over a struggling CSU team and brought them to the tourney. McCollum took over a team that made back to back NCAA tourneys prior to him starting. Give me Medved any day of the week.
Click to expand...
I get what you are saying and I am totally happy with Medved, but to be fair, McCollum had a whole new team at Drake this year. 4 of his starters came with him from Division 2.
 



This will be a fun thread to look back at and a fun comparison over the next many years. I think both programs should be happy with their hire and both programs will be fighting for many of the same recruits.

If for no other reason than I'd rather be an optimist and be wrong than a pessimist and be right, I'll go with Medved.

Go Gophers!!
 

I have it on good authority Medved will be more successful. Don't ask me who my source is.
 





What McCollum did this year at Drake is pretty amazing… Winning a game in the NCAA tournament with several D2 recruits and Stuertz, all in his first year is impressive. The dude can coach.

I’m hoping that McCollum and Medved become like Izzo and Fran M, with Niko being our Izzo. 🤣👍🏼
 

Bad Gopher said:
This is a copout, but time will tell. I will say this: I think Fran was undervalued there.
Click to expand...
Maybe. But at Iowa over his 15 year career, Fran made the tourney less than 50% of the time.

He never won more than 1 game in the tourney in any season.

When he had 2-time consensus All-American Luka Garza on the squad they won a total of 2 tournament games in 2 different seasons.

I honestly expect better results than that from Niko.
 

cheeseheadgophfan said:
What McCollum did this year at Drake is pretty amazing… Winning a game in the NCAA tournament with several D2 recruits and Stuertz, all in his first year is impressive. The dude can coach.

I’m hoping that McCollum and Medved become like Izzo and Fran M, with Niko being our Izzo. 🤣👍🏼
Click to expand...
I want Niko to be a better human being than Izzy has been over the last five years. He’s turned into an angry old man.
 



I think both are good coaches, but Niko is a safer choice due to his experience, not just because I am a Gopher fan.

I feel the same way about McCollum as I did about Craig Smith 4 years ago. Great coach with a good system that won at a lower level. But can he recruit at a high enough level to have success in a P5 conference? The answer with Smith was no.
 

Medved without question. Iowa well get tired of scores in the 50-60.
 


I’m not going to speculate on who will have the better career as I think they both will do well. I don’t understand why people worry about McCollum being able to recruit at a high level, he won’t be able to with that system he runs and he won’t necessarily have to to succeed. He forces teams to play his tempo and they will be disciplined. If he recruits at an average level he will have success. Having said that, I’m thrilled we got Medved!
 


Stan said:
Hired on the same day, at rival programs, by AD's that used to work together, coaches both coached at Drake. Will be an interesting benchmark.
Click to expand...
Both coached at Drake for 1 year too
 

I think both will have good careers...hoping Niko's is a bit better.
 

I’m excited for this rivalry and I think it should be a good one. It seems like DI coaches have three areas they have to excel in: coaching, recruiting, and fundraising.

I think Niko is going to do well in all three.

As for McCollum:

Clearly McCollum can coach. The twitter scouting report from a fellow DII coach is detailed and impressive about his coaching acumen.

Can he up his game in recruiting? He seems like someone that has some arrogance to him and will that clash with too many big ego players? There’s probably good fits out there, but are they talented enough and/or can he coach them up enough?

Early in our coaching search I read one article (that I can’t find again) out of the Indiana search that suggested that an issue with him might be his abrasiveness. I don’t know where they got that from. For fundraising purposes that might be challenging. If you’re winning, it may be all good. If things go sideways, he may not have many backers.

 


Bad Gopher said:
This is a copout, but time will tell. I will say this: I think Fran was undervalued there.
Click to expand...
Fran had an over .500 Big Ten record, and took Iowa to 7 tourneys in 15 seasons (likely would've been 8 if not for COVID). Also won the BTT in 2022.

His major blemish is never taking them to the 2nd weekend of the tourney, but he had a really nice run there.
 



You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom