Head coach Niko Medved knows the tradition might be considered a little corny, perhaps something out of an elementary school, but he has kept it alive with the Gophers men’s basketball team this season.

After his team produces a road win, it’s snack time.

On the way home after a victory, the team’s coach bus will pull off the road at a gas station or convenience store and everybody on board gets to pick two items to munch on during the rest of the trip. While current players are, of course, fed a postgame meal, the U foots the bill for snack time, even if players can now afford it in the revenue-sharing era.

The Gophers’ first snack time experience this season came after an 84-78 win over Northwestern in Evanston, Ill. on Saturday. The cashier at Graham’s MarketPlace in Skokie, Ill., must have been surprised when roughly 40 people descended on the store at the same time that evening.

“It was … different,” said senior guard Langston Reynolds, a first-year transfer from Northern Colorado. “I didn’t know what to get. I was kind of stunned at first.”

Freshman guard Kia Shinholster recorded the scene on a phone and commentated on his teammates’ choices for subsequent social media posts. Even athletics director Mark Coyle got in on the grub, although his choices weren’t critiqued.

Medved started the snack time tradition when he was coaching at Furman roughly a decade ago, but it really became a routine pastime during his tenure at Colorado State after the pandemic. The Rams community in Fort Collins bought in, too. Fans traveling to road games would try to suss out where snack time would be, while supporters back home in Colorado would record videos of their own snack time and send them to the team.

“It turned into a huge deal,” Medved said Monday ahead of the Gophers’ home game against No. 19 Iowa at Williams Arena on Tuesday night. “The players love it. It’s one of those things that they will remember. The fans really got into it. It kind of became a thing.”

The Rams’ most memorable snack time last year came after Colorado State won the Mountain West Conference tournament title in Las Vegas. The Rams flew back home, and while the tradition is reserved for road games and not neutral sites, they made an exception after three straight victories.

“We were like, ‘We’ve got to do it,’ ” Medved recalled. “We had the (school) president with us, so we went to Buc-ee’s up the road (in Fort Collins and) brought the trophy in there. It’s kind of like holding the Stanley Cup.”

Medved’s old team also might have blown past the two-snack limit during that late-night visit. “I don’t know how many we got that day; whatever they wanted,” Medved said. “Brisket sandwiches all the way around.”

Gophers forward Jaylen Crocker-Johnson played for Colorado State last year and said his favorite snack time was either that one or after an 83-73 win at Boise State’s ExtraMile Arena to close out the regular season.

It’s also a snack time tradition to take photo of the group outside the convenience store. That particular snapshot in Idaho had the logo of the ExtraMile in it — a coincidence, not a troll job of the arena where they’d just won.

It appears any good snack time comes with friendly ribbing of other people’s choices. Medved raised his own hand. He got an ice cream sandwich, a go-to, but also cheese curds, which he said he later regretted.

Forward Grayson Grove, who had a career-high 12 points against the Wildcats, raised eyebrows with a small jug of chocolate milk.

“Are you serious?” Medved joked in the video. Grove reportedly didn’t finish it.

Before the players disembarked in Illinois on Saturday, they were told to not follow the lead of one Colorado State player who used one of his snacks on a bottle of water. The buses are always stocked with plenty of that.

But freshman commentator Shinholster was giving senior Reynolds guff for picking Chex Mix in 2026.

“He’s always calling me old,” said Reynolds, who had a career-high 13 assists against the Wildcats. “It’s a little weird because we are not that far apart in age. But it’s alright. It’s fine. I can take the hit.”

Snack time veteran Crocker-Johnson went with an Arizona ice tea and an ice-cream sandwich, just like his head coach.

“Some questionable options by my teammates,” he critiqued. “But it was definitely a fun experience for us to get that first road win and enjoy that snack time.”

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