USC Basketball: 10 candidates to replace Andy Enfield as Head Coach

Niko Medved

USC is a football school. Regardless, this is a sweet power conference gig that’ll pay handsomely, especially with the program hoping to make a big impression in the Big Ten. Unsurprisingly, you’re going to see some of the premier mid-major head coaches mentioned for this one. We won’t consider older MWC coaches like Brian Dutcher or Steve Alford, but Medved certainly fits the bill.

A native of Minneapolis, Medved went to school at Minnesota and has been a college coach for nearly thirty years. He assisted at four different schools before beginning his head coaching career at Furman in 2013. He’d help rebuild success both with those Paladins and in a brief stint at Drake before Colorado State hired him in 2018. The last six years have been excellent for the Rams, who are fresh off a second trip to the NCAA Tournament in three years.

There aren’t a ton of red flags here; Medved is a rising name in coaching circles who’s finally having some of that breakthrough success at Colorado State. Still, he’s not exactly matching the success even Enfield had at Florida Gulf Coast. There are also no West Coast connections here. One big sell is that Medved has worked in the Big Ten before, having formerly assisted at Minnesota, and those kinds of connections will be key for this program’s future.