Strike 1: Success may have a price at Colorado State. Again.

Nothing new for an athletic department that has been used as a stepping stone by many.

This season the CSU men’s hoops team started the season 5-5, which included getting impaled in Boulder by what proved to be a Colorado team that was, “less than” this year. Fast forward three months. Suddenly, Niko Medved’s squad has completed one of the biggest in-season turnarounds ever, finishing the regular season with 10 straight Mountain West conference wins and a tournament championship that has landed them back in the NCAA’s “Big Dance” for the third time in the last four seasons. No one would have even considered the idea of these Rams going dancing back in early December when the Buffs hammered them 72-55 in a game that, as they say, “wasn’t as close as the final score.”

Since he arrived to take over the program back in 2018, this is unquestionably Medved’s best coaching job. He had one returning starter – superstar Nique Clifford – from last season’s NCAA Tournament team, plus largely a cast of newcomers, including fifth-year senior transfers like Bowen Born and Ethan Mortan. Add in raw rookies like Kyle Jorgensen and Nicola Djapa, and it began as an uncomfortable mix. Getting them to mesh with four returning Rams so quickly was almost miraculous to watch.

Now these Rams have one of those “No. 5 v No. 12” March Madness matchup against Memphis on Friday that most observers believe they have a good chance to win. Who would have ever believed it?

Win or lose this weekend, the Rams will still have to battle hard when the offseason begins. This time it will be to not lose their head coach.

When you’re a successful “non-Power Four” program in any sport, winning brings attention good and bad. The good is obvious. The bad is that the bigger boys often want what you have, and they’re prepared to pay a bigger price to get it. Medved’s alma mater, the University of Minnesota of the all-powerful Big Ten conference, is now looking for a new head coach. It’s a job the Minnesota native has been linked to before, and now many are calling him the obvious choice to return home.

The attraction to move up to a “power” program is obvious enough, starting with a significant salary bump, but also including upgraded facilities, resources and all that goes with a Power program these days. Then add in an opportunity to return to your home, your roots, your alma mater? Not only is Medved a U of M grad, but he’s a native of Minneapolis and a former Golden Gophers assistant coach.

Talk about an obvious fit.

Or is it?

Medved will have things to consider other than the bigger paycheck.

Back in 2012, CSU made another late season NCAA Tournament run under then head coach Tim Miles. They earned the program’s first NCAA bid in almost a decade, and that got Miles noticed. After the Rams were knocked out of the tourney, Miles accepted the challenge of trying to turn around another struggling Big Ten program, Nebraska. Despite the fact that he had it all going right in Fort Collins, the allure of a power conference gig was too much for native Midwesterner Miles to turn down.

Had he owned a crystal ball, however…

Miles actually had a pretty good run in Lincoln, finishing with the third most wins in school history. He was the Coach of the Year in 2014, and ended up on the plus side (116-114) in Lincoln. Nevertheless, Miles was fired at the end of the 2019 season. After a TV stint he’s now back on the bench at San Jose State.

The grass isn’t always greener, as they say.

What makes the scenario with Medved scarier still for CSU followers is the new landscape in college sports, where players often follow their head coach out the door via the Transfer Portal. While Clifford will be off to the NBA after the season, the rest of the Rams roster includes undergrads like Kyan Evans and Rashaan Mbemba who could potentially jump at the chance to keep playing for Medved in the Twin Cities.

And those being recruited by CSU right now are in much the same position.

Worse case, next season could end up being a total and complete rebuild, even greater than what Tad Boyle was faced with doing in Boulder this past season.

Should they lose their head coach, the CSU admin could and should leap at the chance to promote Medved’s assistant Ali Farokhmanesh to the lead job. The long time Medved assistant and 2010 March Madness hero has paid his dues and is ready for a head coaching gig. Farokhmanesh could perhaps convince most of the current Rams to remain in Green and Gold.

Hiring him would be a huge step toward some stability in a program that doesn’t deserve to be devastated by its own success.