Why Drake and Niko Medved could be a fruitful recruiting match

Throughout his introductory press conference, Niko Medved said that college basketball is a people business. As he said this, the newly-hired Drake men’s basketball coach referred to future coaching staff, the Des Moines community and, of course, recruiting.

The last item sits among Medved’s highest priorities now as the new head coach of a struggling program. He said he would begin his searching immediately, but he wasn’t sure exactly how it would shake out.

“How that will shape, it’s just too early to tell at this point,” he said. “Just trying to get a lay of the land, what we need, what’s out there. Hiring the right staff is important for recruiting right now, but I’m not panicked. It’ll work out.”

Medved’s recruiting ability was one of the many factors piquing Drake's interest. In his four years at Furman, five of Medved's players made the Southern Conference all-conference freshman team. One of them, Devin Sibley, was named the league’s freshman of the year in 2015.

“That shows he recruits,” Drake president Marty Martin said. “And then he helps them become all-conference players and, for a couple of them, players of the year. That’s exactly what you have to do at a place like Drake.

“He built Furman on four-year players. That was the core of his teams at Furman, and that’s how we’ll win over the long haul.”

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Medved said his primary recruiting targets would be in the Midwest — specifically, the Minneapolis native listed Minnesota, Nebraska, Illinois, Kansas City and, of course, Iowa, as places he’ll go to find his future players.

“I told him that he’s not likely going to beat Iowa State and Iowa for players,” said Steve Forbes, an Iowa native who coaches at East Tennessee State, “but I think he could battle Northern Iowa for guys.

“I don’t think Iowa high school players identify with Drake right now. You have to get to that point where they know what Drake basketball is about.”

Medved said it will take time before he can completely revamp the roster to look how he wants. He inherits six seniors on a 13-man roster, a ratio he believes is a tad unbalanced. But the experience will be nice, he added, for his first season.

“We’ll have a higher level of turnover maybe earlier than we had at Furman,” Medved said. “You got some scholarships, and then those six seniors coming down the pipe, so we have a lot of work to do early. We want to balance out the classes.

“That’s going to be a challenge moving forward, one that we’re going to figure out.”

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Even more, Medved already lost one player from last year’s team via transfer. Sophomore forward Billy Wampler announced his decision to leave the program shortly after the press conference concluded Monday. Wampler averaged 9.6 points per game this past season.

So begins Medved's search for the future of the Drake program, whether it be through transfers or this year’s recruiting class. A dead period in recruiting begins Thursday and ends April 6. Medved is excited for the challenge.

“He’s always impressed me with his ability to evaluate and assess a situation with a recruit, which made him one of the first guys I hired at Colorado State,” said Tim Miles, who coaches at Nebraska and had Medved as an assistant in Fort Collins.

“He can sign kids from Illinois and Minnesota. He tried like heck to recruit in Iowa, but I couldn’t finish … Drake fits his recruiting base perfectly.”

Cody Goodwin covers high school sports, college basketball recruiting and Drake athletics for the Des Moines Register. Follow him on Twitter at @codygoodwin.

The Register's Randy Peterson contributed to this story.