Medved's Youngsters Still Have Plenty to Talk About
Last season's freshmen focused on internal chatter
Mike Brohard
When there’s so much talk, it can be hard to focus.
When it came to Niko Medved’s 2019 recruiting class, there was plenty of chatter surrounding his Colorado State basketball program. For the second-year coach, bringing in five players represented a large portion of his roster and a quick-burst opportunity to construct the program in his vision.
Fans were excited, and commitment by commitment, the volume only grew louder. It started with Isaiah Stevens, followed by James Moors and David Roddy. Dischon Thomas and John Tonje followed. As young kids, who wouldn’t be flattered by the praise? It’s can get downright tempting to tune in and soak it all up.
When there are multiple conversations happening at once, the individual has to decide where to direct their ear, where to place focus, which discussions to become engaged. They heard it all, for sure, and credit to them all, they chose to direct their interactions toward the opening presentation.
“I didn’t really feel a lot of pressure with it. I just knew Coach Medved and the rest of the coaching staff really wanted to kind of make their statement of the culture they want to have with CSU,” Roddy said. “They recruited Adam Thistlewood and Kendle Moore (the first year), and they were the first stepping stones. Then they recruited big with our class; having five guys coming in is kind of a brand new team. Through the recruiting process, he understood where he was at and he wanted me to understand that coming here, it was going to be a culture change. We were going to try to flip the culture on its head and become a successful basketball team. That was the most telling thing.”
The truth would be stretched like fresh taffy to suggest it was a make-or-break class for Medved, but it definitely was important. It wasn’t only about finding good players, but finding the right players. There was going to be a lot thrown at them from the moment they arrived. Roles had to be filled, and the better they handled the mental part of the process, the easier it was going to be to see physical and tangible results on the court.
With each signing, the chat room the freshmen created grew. There wasn’t much about what the fan’s expectations were. They couldn’t ignore it, but the hard truth was they had intentions for themselves as a group. They knew what Medved was aiming for and fully understood they could create something special.
Team Together was the mantra, and while they were young, the freshmen class also represented the future. They couldn’t just be led into it, they had to push it themselves, as they will be the group most responsible for carrying it forward the longest.
“I thought they did a great job of taking the bull by the horns, taking ownership, not making excuses for being young, but at the same time realizing they had a lot to learn,” Medved said. “I think those things can be a difficult balance sometimes. They never did, we never did, try to say we’re going to use being young and lack of experience as a crutch. I thought those guys handled that really, really well and had high expectations for themselves. As we were going through some bumps in the road early in the season, I thought their responses to those were great.
“To be honest, I think a lot of it was they didn’t really worry what people thought. Whether some people thought this or that – that’s the nature of what we do – but I thought they just worried about what they were doing every day. I thought their buy-in was tremendous. They really tried to do everything we asked them to do, and they really bought into the team. They’re obviously guys that have a lot of talent, but I thought it was their mentality that really separated them and allowed them to grow and get a taste of success and develop a confidence that they belong.”
Flipping the culture, by all accounts, took place, but it wasn’t the only reversal.
The Rams went from a 12-20 team in 2018-19 to 20-12 last year. The same goes for the Mountain West mark – from 7-11 to 11-7. For most of the season, Colorado State was hanging with the upper echelon of the conference, vying for one of the first-round berths at the conference tournament.
It didn’t happen, but it doesn’t mean progress didn’t take place. So again, the chatter starts. But nothing about this season will remain the same, as Medved knows. In fact, it can’t be the same if progress is to be attained.
“The expectations will be different. The secret is out, and I think that’s a good thing,” Medved said. “I think that’s ultimately where you want to be. You want to be in a place where people expect to win, people expect to have success. I think that’s a big thing, but the message for us … Sometimes you can get too worried about the outside focus, and I think you have to keep sticking to what’s allowed you to be successful, which is keep trying to grow, look at what we did well and what we have to do to improve. How do we hold ourselves to a higher standard? That doesn’t just go for the players, that goes for the coaches, so I think the offseason is just a great way to do a lot of self-evaluation. Obviously, this offseason has been quite a bit different.
“A lot of this has been about words so far, and we really haven’t had a chance to put that into action, but we will. Everybody else in the same boat that way. I’m confident that we’ll handle that.”
Just like they did last year. Naturally, the senior leadership of Nico Carvacho, Kris Martin and Hyron
Edwards will be missed. They were all key players, and Carvacho exits the stage as the program’s career rebounding leader. For years, he has been the player who topped the opponent’s scouting report, but even last year, he was having to share his position on the mantle.
Stevens was one of three players to start every game, and he led the team in minutes played while assuming the crucial role at the point. Roddy, who played every game, started 19 down the stretch. As the season progressed, they started to draw more and more attention, forcing both to make adjustments.
Those don’t always come easy in the first year.
“That was something I really had to work on,” Roddy said. “In midseason and we were on our streak, it kinda changed when you’re starting to get double teams. I didn’t like that at the beginning, but you have to adjust. You have understand that, one, it’s not just about how many points you score, it’s about what you do when the ball’s not in your hands. It’s good when you have a double team on you, so it’s a 5-on-4 situation right now and you can make the right play for your teammate. It’s how the season went.”
Meanwhile, classmates Dischon Thomas and John Tonje were learning their own roles off the bench, each of them playing in 31 of 32 games. It was an intriguing taste of college basketball for both, so very tempting and delectable to want to find their own seat at the table for a full-course meal.
The mind wanders to the place of what more does a player have to do to go to the next point. However, it can be misleading. Medved doesn’t want them to change what they’re doing, just do it better. The reality is to keep taking the same steps, just pick up the pace, some of which comes with maturity and experience.
Those are character traits last year’s freshman class already displayed. As roommates, this is a major topic for Tonje and Thomas.
“I mean, it’s a role I want. I’m working towards it, working on my weaknesses,” Tonje said. “I really learned a lot from my first year, and I really have a blueprint of what I need to do going forward to achieve that role and be the best player I can be in that role.
“I feel like, just keep grinding, stay with the course. What we’ve been doing so far has been working. We’ve all been getting better in the system. We’ve all gotten better as individuals. There’s not a different step than what we’ve been doing. We’ve been coming in and working hard.”
The expectations will be different. The secret is out, and I think that’s a good thing.Niko Medved, Men's Basketball Coach
The hype? You’d have to say they lived up to chatter. Stevens walked away with Mountain West freshman of the year honors after averaging 13.3 points and 4.5 assists per game. Roddy finished at 11.4 points per game, and both Tonje and Thomas had big moments throughout the season.
Even from the sidelines, Medved watched Moors grow in confidence as he redshirted. As a group, they looked much different to their coach in March than when they first arrived on campus for workouts. He expects them to look different in the upcoming season, too.
He’s not alone. They all know what the fan base envisions, and while they appreciate the support and motivation, it pales in comparison to what is growing internally.
“I think that’s accurate. Isn’t that kind of a microcosm of the world? We live in a world with a lot of noise,” Medved said. “You look at your phone and all the social media, and there’s a ton of noise. I think the ability to kinda try to lose yourself in your own process and our process of a team is really difficult to do, but that’s the key to so much of this is just doing that. It’s understanding you’re going to have ups and downs, and sometimes it’s those downs that really teach you the most if you take the time to see it and grow.
“These guys enter our offseason and they enter it in a really good place mentally. Our challenge is just going to be can we take that to the next level, and can we fight the ups and down? This team is going to be different than last year. We’ve got guys coming back, but every team is different. The chemistry is different. Guys are going to want bigger roles. There’s a lot of potential in that, but there are a lot of challenges, too. By no means is anybody here taking anything for granted. We know we’ve got a ton of work to do to try to take this thing to the next level.”
For now, they wait. For campus to open up and them to be invited back as a group. To work as a unit, to start to answer the key questions. Not just avoiding sophomore slumps, but seeing major gains from juniors and filling leadership voids. To see where a Moors fits into the equation, even transfers P.J. Byrd and Ignas Sargiunas. Not to mention incoming freshmen Isaiah Rivera and Jacob Jennison (who is not expected to be ready coming off a knee injury).
The blueprint may remain the same, but it is not without enhancements. Each player left campus with an individual list of personal improvements. There are the expected items such as ball handling, shooting or increasing strength. As gyms opened, those were attacked. Tonje took the initiative to take on something more personal, too. He struggled with some nagging injuries in his first season, and he admits he was never one for stretching. Yet, while he’s been back home in Omaha waiting to return to campus, he has found yoga in the past month. For him, it’s been a noticeable game changer.
“We have a great group of guys, a great young core,” Roddy said. “The sky is the limit for us if we keep it day by day and just stay focused. We’re super-excited just to get back and play with each other, experience college again, enjoy the moment. I’m just super-excited for this season, because I know what we can do and where we need to go, and I think we can make it there.”
At the least, it gives them a conversation for their group chat.