RandBall: U’s Niko Medved says transfer portal recruiting ‘a lot like NBA free agency’

Big-time college recruiting in 2025 often involves negotiations over money and the desire for teams and players to find good roster fits in terms of style and playing time.

Athletes move about freely, often capitalizing on good seasons to improve their pay, profile or both. The best teams seem to get better because they are proven winners with the pedigree and deep pockets to compete.

And there only figures to be more cash in play very soon, when a federal judge is expected to let schools pay athletes directly in addition to the money players receive from name, image and likeness deals.

If that sounds a lot like professional sports to you, that’s because ... it is a lot like professional sports. But don’t just take it from me.

Let’s listen to new Gophers men’s basketball coach Niko Medved, who is trying to build a 2025-26 roster mainly out of recruits from the transfer portal:

“It’s moved a lot like NBA free agency, to be honest. Most of these guys have agent representation. Obviously, NIL and the money is a part of it,” he said during Wednesday’s Daily Delivery podcast. “I think for a lot of these portal guys, they’ve kind of cut out all the fluff. [They] don’t need to be on campus for 48 hours, go to the football game, do all the pomp and circumstance. They’ve kind of been through that before. They know what’s important to them in this, and we do, too.”

The constant roster reshuffling can have a whiplash effect on fans and other program supporters, but Medved seems well-positioned to lead the Gophers in this new era.

While coaches don’t generally get into the business because they love paperwork and roster churn — indeed, Medved says his favorite thing about coaching is leading practices and watching teams get better — he has proved adept at identifying and developing talent.

Modern coaching just demands you do it on a tighter timeline.

“You’re still doing a lot of the same things that you’ve done before as far as your style of play, how they fit, how they can develop here,” Medved said. “I’m a relational coach. We really value people and who they are, and so I think what you have to do in a short period of time [is] try to distill a lot of information. You’ve got to rely on your network and trust your gut. Even in this condensed recruiting [era], we still have to find the right kinds of people to be a part of our program, and it’s a challenge.”

But like Medved said, it’s a necessary challenge — particularly this year, with a bare bones returning roster. The Gophers have already added seven transfers to the roster via the portal, while Medved added that “at some point here, you’ll see some news about another player.”

True NBA free agency doesn’t begin for a couple of months. But its close relative is in full swing.