“Maybe when we first got to Colorado State there was some of that,” Medved said. “But now you’re in this world where every year you’re looking at five or six [new] guys or more. Hopefully we start to move past that as we kind of get more clarity with what it’s going to look like from a rev share and NIL perspective moving forward. Ultimately, if you’re going to be really good, you’ve got to retain your best guys.”
Medved’s predecessor Ben Johnson didn’t have the resources to keep starters such as Elijah Hawkins and Pharrel Payne, who went on to play on NCAA tournament teams at Texas Tech and Texas A&M, respectively. Payne recently followed his head coach Buzz Williams to Maryland for a figure rumored to be well over $1 million.
The Gophers still probably couldn’t afford to bring Payne back if they tried. And Medved’s former Colorado State point guard Kyan Evans committed to North Carolina on Wednesday for possibly seven figures as well.
Losing out on players to programs with deep pocketed boosters can still happen to the Gophers in the new climate, but they’re more equipped to compete in a bidding war with teams on their level, according to their NIL collective.
“I’m optimistic about the near future of Gophers men’s basketball,” Dinkytown Athletes co-founder Derek Burns said. “With revenue sharing and us doing better in NIL than any previous year, when you combine those two things the disparity between resources is shrinking.”
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