The next head coach in Niko Medved's coaching tree is on his staff at Minnesota

Armon Gates may be on the fast track to getting a head coaching job.

Feb 18, 2015; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Northwestern Wildcats assistant coach Armon Gates claps in the second half against the Minnesota Gophers at Williams Arena. The Northwestern Wildcats beat the Minnesota Gophers 72-66. Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-Imagn Images | Brad Rempel-Imagn Images

Ten or 15 years from now we might be talking about a Niko Medved coaching tree.

Like Bill Walsh, Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick, Mike Shanahan, Andy Reid and Sean McVay in the NFL, great head coaches hire assistants who go on to become successful head coaches. Medved is already well on his way to doing the same in college basketball — and he thinks an assistant on his new staff at Minnesota is well on his way to getting a head job in the future.

Who is that special someone on his staff? Armon Gates, the younger brother of Missouri head coach Dennis Gates. He was hired by Medved last week.

"Unbelievable energy. Unbelievable experience. He's so good with people. Has worked with some phenomenal coaches. Obviously you see what his brother's doing at Missouri. Armon is going to be a head coach, I have no doubt. I really hope that him being a part of our program can just help him grow even more into that. He's going to get an opportunity. He deserves one," Medved said Monday on the Jim Rome Show.

If Gates develops into a head coach, he'll be the fourth to do so after working under Medved.

"I've got a few head coaches now, three different assistants who've become head coaches and that's really what you want. I think Armon is going to do that and hopefully his experience in our program is just going to accelerate that."

Gates has been around the NCAA coaching block. He spent the past two seasons on the staff at Oklahoma. He's also worked on coaching staffs at Oregon, Nebraska and Northwestern. He's worked under college basketball coaching titans like Porter Moser (Oklahoma and Loyola-Chicago), Dana Altman (Oregon), Fred Hoiberg (Nebraska) and Chris Collins (Northwestern).

While Medved says he has three past assistants who went on to become head coaches, it's actually four when you include Ali Farokhmanesh, who was Medved's top assistant at Colorado State and was recently promoted to head coach.

The others include Bob Richey, Jay McAuley and Dwight Perry, who all worked under Medved when he was at Furman. Richey is the current head coach at Furman, McAuley was the head coach at Wofford from 2019 to 2022, and Perry has been the head coach at Wofford since taking over for McAuley in 2022.

Medved says he's close to filling out the coaching staff at Minnesota, while at the same time hitting the transfer portal hard in an effort to construct a roster that is replacing more than ten players from the past season.

"They had ten seniors on the roster last year, so we've got a lot of work to do immediately in the transfer portal," Medved said. "This year is really a transition of filling out a roster and hopefully getting a little bit more balance to it so we've got guys developing, a mix of older, younger players. Hopefully guys that we can retain and build something with. But this year is going to be a challenge that way with as many new guys as we have to get."

Three of the four teams in the Final Four this year had at least 70% of last season's roster return for this season.

So far, Medved has landed commitments from B.J. Omot (California), Jaylen Crocker-Johnson (Colorado State), and Bobby Durkin (Davidson).