Gophers men’s basketball assistant Armon Gates, from Oklahoma, is the team’s highest paid assistant coach

The top four assistants for Gophers men’s basketball coach Niko Medved are making more combined than their counterparts did last season under Ben Johnson.

Medved, who replaced Johnson coming from Colorado State, will have Oklahoma’s Armon Gates as his highest-paid assistant at an annual salary of $400,000, according to the Gophers.

Gates, brother of Missouri coach Dennis Gates, has 15 years of assistant coaching experience. The Chicago native was Oklahoma coach Porter Moser’s top recruiter and key in the Sooners landing four-star guard and freshman Jeremiah Fears, a potential NBA draft pick this summer.

Last season, Dave Thorson, who previously coached with Medved at Drake and Colorado State, was the highest-paid Gophers assistant under Johnson, making $341,000. His salary will remain the same this coming season.

Following Medved from Colorado State, former Rams assistant Brian Cooley’s salary will be $300,000 this season with the Gophers. And Chad Warner was also added as the fourth assistant at a salary of $275,000 after being part of Furman’s staff since 2022-23.

That puts the four main Medved assistants’ total salary at $1.32 million in 2025-26.

On the previous Gophers’ staff, Thorson’s salary combined with assistants Marcus Jenkins ($305,000), Jason Kemp ($252,000) and Josh Adel ($79,000) was $977,000.

According to Medved’s contract, his assistant coach salary pool will be $2 million for five assistants and four full-time support staff members.

According to the Gophers, ex-Colorado State director of men’s basketball operations Rachel Herndon ($112,500 salary) is taking the same job at the U. Former Rams graduate assistants Lucas Stieber and Anthony Holland (both $45,500 salaries) were also hired as director of player development and director of player personnel, respectively.

The Gophers will be heading back to California during nonconference play for Medved’s first season.

On Thursday, the Gophers announced they were added to the Acrisure Series college basketball tournament scheduled Nov. 25-28 in Palm Desert, Calif.

Specific matchups and dates will be announced later, but other teams officially in the field are Utah, Tulsa, Northern Iowa, Stanford, Washington, Santa Clara, San José State, Cal Baptist, San Diego, Nevada and Loyola-Chicago. Ole Miss and Iowa reportedly are playing in the Thanksgiving week event, as well.

The Gophers were last in Southern California for an event in 2022-23 when they finished 1-1 against Cal Baptist and UNLV in the SoCal Challenge in San Juan Capistrano, Calif.