Porter Moser will have to do more than just restock Oklahoma's roster heading into his fifth season; the Sooners' head coach will have to fill an opening on his coaching staff as well.
After maintaining staff continuity for the last two seasons, Oklahoma is losing an assistant coach to another high-major program as Armon Gates is leaving OU for a role at Minnesota under new Gophers head coach Niko Medved, Minnesota announced Thursday morning.
Medved, a Minnesota native who spent the last seven seasons as head coach at Colorado State, recently took over at his alma mater after guiding CSU to the second round of the NCAA Tournament this year and a third NCAA Tournament appearance in the last four seasons. Now he's tabbing Gates for a key role on his inaugural staff with the Gophers, bringing in a native Midwesterner with ties to the region to help rebuild the program.
Gates spent the last two seasons as an assistant on Moser's staff at Oklahoma. It was their second time working together after Gates previously spent two seasons on Moser's staff at Loyola Chicago from 2011-13.
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In the decade between those stints working under Moser, Gates coached on staff at Northwestern, Nebraska and Oregon. He was at Northwestern as part of Chris Collins' staff for five seasons, helping the Wildcats to a pair of 20-win campaigns and the program's first NCAA Tournament appearance in 2017. There, Gates helped coach five All-Big Ten selections.
His time in his native Chicago was followed by three seasons at Nebraska, where he helped develop another All-Big Ten guard in Cam Mack. In 2022, Gates made the move from Nebraska to Oregon as part of Dana Altman's staff, helping the Ducks to a 21-15 record before leaving Eugene for Norman.
In two seasons with the Sooners, Gates helped the program to back-to-back 20-win seasons and its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2021. Most notably, he was vital in the recruitment of Jeremiah Fears, who reclassified from the 2025 class to join Oklahoma a year early upon his commitment last summer. Fears went on to lead the team in scoring and assists while earning SEC All-Freshman honors. The 18-year-old guard declared for the NBA Draft on Wednesday and is projected as a likely lottery pick, which would make him the program's first one-and-done player and first lottery pick since Trae Young in 2018.
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