New Minnesota men’s basketball head coach Niko Medved has officially rounded out his coaching staff with two additional hires, as announced Monday. Chad Warner and Aaron Katsuma are the latest to join the team, complementing the three assistant coaches previously in place.
Warner arrives from Furman, where he served as an assistant for the past three seasons. He played a role in the Paladins’ 2022–23 campaign that included 28 wins and a memorable NCAA Tournament upset over No. 4 seed Virginia. Prior to his time at Furman, Warner was a head coach at the NAIA and Division II levels — leading Flagler College for five seasons and Shorter University for eight. He’s a 1998 graduate of the University of Georgia.
Katsuma, a Minnesota alum, reunites with Medved after prior stints together at Drake and Colorado State. He began his career with the Gophers as a student manager and later held roles as a graduate manager and assistant director of player personnel under Richard Pitino. Katsuma joined Medved’s Drake staff in 2017 and followed him to CSU, then spent the past two seasons as an assistant at New Mexico under Pitino, contributing to consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances.
With these hires, Medved’s staff now includes five assistants: Dave Thorson (a former DeLaSalle HS coach and Johnson staff holdover), Brian Cooley (a past CSU assistant), Armon Gates (a veteran coach and brother of Missouri’s head coach Dennis Gates), alongside the newly added Warner and Katsuma.
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