New Minnesota head basketball coach Niko Medved has expanded his coaching staff by adding two more assistants, as announced by the program on Monday. Chad Warner and Aaron Katsuma are the latest to join the staff, alongside the three assistant coaches already in place.
Warner comes to Minnesota after spending the last three years at Furman in the Southern Conference. He began his tenure with the Paladins in 2022-23, a season where they won 28 games and famously upset No. 4 seed Virginia in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Prior to that, Warner was a head coach at the NAIA and D-II levels, leading Flagler College (FL) for five years and Shorter University (GA) for eight years. He graduated from the University of Georgia in 1998.
Katsuma returns to his alma mater after working alongside Medved at both Colorado State and Drake. He was a student manager at Minnesota from 2010 to 2014, before serving as a graduate manager and the assistant director of player personnel under Richard Pitino. In 2017-18, he joined Medved’s staff at Drake, then followed him to Colorado State for five seasons. Most recently, Katsuma was an assistant coach at New Mexico under Pitino, where he helped the Lobos reach consecutive NCAA Tournaments.
With these additions, Medved now has a full staff of five assistant coaches. Dave Thorson, a long-time coach at DeLaSalle High School, remains from Ben Johnson’s staff and has worked with both Medved and Johnson in recent years. Brian Cooley, a former assistant under Medved at Colorado State, has also followed him to Minnesota. Armon Gates, who has extensive experience as an assistant at several high-level programs, rounds out the staff. He is the brother of Missouri head coach Dennis Gates.
The Gophers also announced a few other additions to their staff:
- Joe De Ciman: Chief of staff
- Rachel Herndon: Director of operations
- Anthony Holland: Director of player personnel
- Lucas Stieber: Director of player development
All four were previously with Medved at Colorado State. De Ciman, Holland, and Stieber are former D-I basketball players.
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