Laramie, WY — Nico Medved remembers the conversation vividly.
The coach and future star point guard had lunch in the fall of 2019.
Sitting at the Tokyo Joe’s table, Medved looked Isaiah Stevens in the eye and dropped the big news in first grade.
“I said, ‘Okay, I’m going to say something here. You’re going to be my starting point guard and you’re going to remain that way for the rest of your career,'” Medved said. “He was like, ‘Wow,’ and I said, ‘You’re ready.’ It happened.”
More than 100 games later, exactly what Medved expected happened.
Stevens broke Ryan Yoder’s nearly 30-year-old all-time assists record at CSU with two assists early in the game in Wyoming on Saturday. His tying assist was Patrick Cartier finding a drive to the basket, and the record-breaking was John Tongje’s kick on his 3-pointer.
He is now 531 years old and counting.
It was about the same time that Medved told Stevens that the boy from Allen, Texas set his sights on Yoder and said he would start soon.
He knew scoring and defending could be slow to translate from high school to college — Stevens calls himself “just a regular guy” as an athlete.
“I’ve been chasing records for a long time. Continue scraping at the end. said Stevens.
“I always felt that passing was the ability to quickly translate to college level.”
When asked if he remembers his first assist as Lamb, he chuckles and replies, “It took a while.” He didn’t remember the details of his first assist, but he knew it was a few games into his career.
Sure enough, his first two games were without assists. He even remembers assistant coaches Ali Farokmanesh and J.R. Brandt saying he wasn’t aggressive enough if he didn’t get an assist, the first being early in Game 3 when Adam was his 3-pointer pass for Thistlewood.
Saturday was his 105th In his career games at CSU, after the first two zeros, he has only five games without assists.
Stevens and Yoder are on friendly terms, and Stevens acknowledges his support. Yoder he set the mark from 1990 to his 94 and held it for 29 years. Yoder still holds a one-season record of 204 career assists per game with 5.2 (Stevens’ 5.1).
“I want to beat that number,” Stevens said with a laugh.
Stevens said it was a team achievement and the best of his career.
“This is probably number one. The assist record has been in my head since I stepped into Fort Collins as an 18-year-old kid,” Stevens said.
“I definitely want to push it out there.
Follow sports reporter Kevin Lytle twitter and Instagram @Kevin_Lytle.