The Minnesota Golden Gophers and head coach Niko Medved are hiring Oklahoma assistant coach Armon Gates to their coaching staff.

A long-time assistant, Gates comes to Minnesota after spending the past two seasons with the Sooners. But he also previously spent time in his career at Oregon, Nebraska, Northwestern, Loyola Chicago, TCU, and Kent State as an assistant coach.

Gates also played at Kent State from 2002 through 2007, playing in 125 games and averaging 6.4 points and 2.2 rebounds per game.

A native of Chicago, Gates could help provide the Gophers with a recruiting presence in the Chicago area. Notably, the most recent Gopher from the greater Chicago area was 2023 signee Cameron Christie, who after the 2023-24 season left for the NBA. He would end up being the 46th overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft and has played in nine games as a rookie.

Gates is the third on-court assistant to be hired by Niko Medved, joining Dave Thorson and Brian Cooley. Thorson, a former assistant under Medved, is staying on staff after being an assistant under Ben Johnson, while Cooley will be coming to Minneapolis from Colorado State. Additionally, it's expected that Colorado State Director of Player Development Joe De Ciman will be making the jump from Fort Collins to Minneapolis alongside Medved and Cooley.

Medved's memorandum of understanding with Minnesota included an assistant salary pool of $2,000,00,0, which would be for five full-time assistant coaches and four full-time sport-specific support staffers.

Notably, when Gates was hired at Oklahoma, his initial annual salary was $250,000 according to OU Daily.

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