Who should Drake hire?

[DUBulldog]

Official now....Niko Medved is Drake's new head coach

Yeah or nay from the Drake faithful?

Overall positive. Considering where Drake is at, I'm happy to get a coach who has proven they can win at the Division 1 level.

[AndShock]

That hire gets an A+ from me. Furman has been one of the programs I've followed quite a bit this year since they crushed it ATS. Actually thought Medved would be looking at something a bit better than Drake.

[squirrel]

Agreed. On paper looks like a solid hire. It will really be interesting if he were to bring in Molinari as an associate head coach. Not sure if Drake would be able to afford it, but there may be pressure on Miles to shake up his staff at Nebraska.

[DUBulldog]

No official announcements yet on his assistant coaches, but multiple sources are reporting two of his assistants. Sounds like there will be official announcement on Friday.

1. JR Blount will remain as assistant at Drake. He was brought in as DOBO 3 years ago and became an assistant coach last season. He is apparently somebody that all the players are very close to. Former Loyola player who has good connections in Chicago and Milwaukee.

2. Dave Thorson. Was an assistant at Minnesota under Clem Haskins in the early 90s, but has spent the last 23 years as head coach at DeLasalle High in Minneapolis area. Has won 9 state titles, including the last 6 years in a row. I would assume he has very strong connections in the Twin Cities area.

[Redhawk]

No official announcements yet on his assistant coaches, but multiple sources are reporting two of his assistants. Sounds like there will be official announcement on Friday.

1. JR Blount will remain as assistant at Drake. He was brought in as DOBO 3 years ago and became an assistant coach last season. He is apparently somebody that all the players are very close to. Former Loyola player who has good connections in Chicago and Milwaukee.

2. Dave Thorson. Was an assistant at Minnesota under Clem Haskins in the early 90s, but has spent the last 23 years as head coach at DeLasalle High in Minneapolis area. Has won 9 state titles, including the last 6 years in a row. I would assume he has very strong connections in the Twin Cities area.

Don't know either of these two but if they have good connections in Chicago, Milwaukee and the
Twin Cities that should help Drake increase their quality of recruits to compete in the Valley.
I think Niko was a great hire for the Bulldogs!

[uniftw]

No official announcements yet on his assistant coaches, but multiple sources are reporting two of his assistants. Sounds like there will be official announcement on Friday.

1. JR Blount will remain as assistant at Drake. He was brought in as DOBO 3 years ago and became an assistant coach last season. He is apparently somebody that all the players are very close to. Former Loyola player who has good connections in Chicago and Milwaukee.

2. Dave Thorson. Was an assistant at Minnesota under Clem Haskins in the early 90s, but has spent the last 23 years as head coach at DeLasalle High in Minneapolis area. Has won 9 state titles, including the last 6 years in a row. I would assume he has very strong connections in the Twin Cities area.

Don't know either of these two but if they have good connections in Chicago, Milwaukee and the
Twin Cities that should help Drake increase their quality of recruits to compete in the Valley.
I think Niko was a great hire for the Bulldogs!

Right, but Drake has this incredible academic standard. UNI recruits the Twin Cities hard, I mean hard. The majority would be "qualifiers" at Drake, but many that Drake will "allow" admittance too aren't going to be the targets they need.

UNI players from the Twin City area the last decade or so
-Tywhon Pickford - soon to be (hopefully). HS teammate of Brad Davidson - a top 50 recruit that was between UNI and Wisconsin. Davidson's sister is one of the best UNI players in history.
-Justin Dahl
-Marvin Singleton
-Marc Sonnen
-Kwadzo Ahelegbe
-Travis Brown
-Eric Coleman
-Evertee Pedescleaux (he left the program to become an All American DL for the football team and then spend time in the NFL)

There is a ton of talent there. IF Drake can tap into that market and find players that mix the Twin Cities skill with their apparent academic requirements we could see them move up in the conference.

[DUBulldog]

No official announcements yet on his assistant coaches, but multiple sources are reporting two of his assistants. Sounds like there will be official announcement on Friday.

1. JR Blount will remain as assistant at Drake. He was brought in as DOBO 3 years ago and became an assistant coach last season. He is apparently somebody that all the players are very close to. Former Loyola player who has good connections in Chicago and Milwaukee.

2. Dave Thorson. Was an assistant at Minnesota under Clem Haskins in the early 90s, but has spent the last 23 years as head coach at DeLasalle High in Minneapolis area. Has won 9 state titles, including the last 6 years in a row. I would assume he has very strong connections in the Twin Cities area.

Don't know either of these two but if they have good connections in Chicago, Milwaukee and the
Twin Cities that should help Drake increase their quality of recruits to compete in the Valley.
I think Niko was a great hire for the Bulldogs!

Right, but Drake has this incredible academic standard. UNI recruits the Twin Cities hard, I mean hard. The majority would be "qualifiers" at Drake, but many that Drake will "allow" admittance too aren't going to be the targets they need.

UNI players from the Twin City area the last decade or so
-Tywhon Pickford - soon to be (hopefully). HS teammate of Brad Davidson - a top 50 recruit that was between UNI and Wisconsin. Davidson's sister is one of the best UNI players in history.
-Justin Dahl
-Marvin Singleton
-Marc Sonnen
-Kwadzo Ahelegbe
-Travis Brown
-Eric Coleman
-Evertee Pedescleaux (he left the program to become an All American DL for the football team and then spend time in the NFL)

There is a ton of talent there. IF Drake can tap into that market and find players that mix the Twin Cities skill with their apparent academic requirements we could see them move up in the conference.

Drake's academic rules effect their ability to recruit jucos more than high school kids. I know that both Phelps and Giacoletti tried to recruit the twin cities without success. The high school that this coach comes from is very solid academically in addition to winning 6 straight state championships. Drake has a current walk-on from his program who had something like a 33 on his ACT. His teams were known for in-your-face defense, so I'm guessing that will be his main area at Drake (in addition to recruiting Minnesota)

Minnesota should be fertile recruiting ground. Lots of good players up there and only one D1 school in the entire state. Outside of UM, Drake and UNI are probably the two closest D1 schools to Minneapolis (maybe one of the SD schools is closer).

[BCPanther]

Good for Drake. Medved seems to have a better plan going in than either of the last two guys.

We need Drake to get better for the good of the league.

Still, however, #HateTheDrake.

[uniftw]

Drake's academic rules effect their ability to recruit jucos more than high school kids. I know that both Phelps and Giacoletti tried to recruit the twin cities without success. The high school that this coach comes from is very solid academically in addition to winning 6 straight state championships. Drake has a current walk-on from his program who had something like a 33 on his ACT. His teams were known for in-your-face defense, so I'm guessing that will be his main area at Drake (in addition to recruiting Minnesota)

Minnesota should be fertile recruiting ground. Lots of good players up there and only one D1 school in the entire state. Outside of UM, Drake and UNI are probably the two closest D1 schools to Minneapolis (maybe one of the SD schools is closer).

UNI is closer to the heart of the Twin Cities than NDSU - even if only by about 30 miles. Yeah, that puts into perspective just how freaking far out there Fargo is (relevant to another topic on here but)

According to Google Maps (using the Target Center as the reference point for MPLS)
SDSU - 214 miles (3 hrs 50 mi)
UNI - 220 miles (3 hrs 22 min)
NDSU - 236 miles (3 hours 30 min)
Drake - 246 miles (3 hours 39 min)

SDSU is the closest by 6 miles, but it takes the longest to get there.

The difference between Drake and NDSU is traffic getting out of their town in through downtown.

However, having all 4 recruit the same city, as part of the same conference, would potentially "harm" pipelines that exist. Keeping those two in a conference that doesn't also involve UNI/Drake is beneficial to both UNI and Drake.

[BCPanther]

Crazy thing is, UNI has only really recruited two high schools in the Twin Cities, Tartan and Maple Grove. There is so much other talent there that Drake can access...