Freshman Coffey proud to stay home, play for Gophers

MINNEAPOLIS - From the back of a large classroom at Hopkins High School, Amir Coffey sat at a table by himself, a sea of anxious onlookers before him.
“Next year,” he told his audience, “I’ll be attending the University of Minnesota.”
As soon as he had slipped on his maroon and gold cap, Coffey’s phone blew up.
Many were messages of congratulations, but some wondered about the decision just made by an Minnesota’s top high school basketball player in the class of 2016.
“Some people were mad,” Coffey said. “They said I could have gone bigger.”
Surely, he could have. As the 32nd best player in the country, according to ESPN, Coffey had his pick of schools. Two years, Minnesota’s top recruits standouts spurned the Gophers in favor of Duke (Tyus Jones), Stanford (Reid Travis) and UNLV (Rashad Vaughn).
Coffey wanted to buck that trend.
“Most of the highly-touted recruits from Minnesota have left,” he said. “I wanted to be the first guy to stay home.”
Now, 13 months after his commitment, Coffey preps for his first game with the Gophers on Friday, Nov. 11, under the pressure that comes from being the program’s highest-ranked recruit out of high school since ESPN first started ranking the nation’s top 100 recruits in 2007.
And that ignores the pressure that comes from being the in-state kid fans hopes resurrects a program that hasn’t reached the NCAA tournament since Tubby Smith’s last season in 2013.
“That’s why I came here,” Coffey said. “That’s something we’ve been working toward.”
When Coffey first saw his No. 5 jersey hanging in the Gophers locker room, he snapped a picture and sent it to his father, Richard Coffey, who played for the Gophers in the late 1980s. On move-in day this fall, Richard walked the streets of Dinkytown with his son, sharing stories of yesteryear.
“He has a lot of stories,” Coffey said with a laugh.
Coffey grew up attending Gophers games in seats right behind the home bench and envisioned himself playing on the raised hardwood floor of Williams Arena. After the elder Coffey spent countless hours in the gym with the younger, the college offers poured in.
But even during that time, Coffey said, he never felt pressure to follow in his father’s footsteps.
“Most people think I just came here because my dad wanted me to, but he wanted me to take my time with it and go where I was comfortable,” Coffey said. “He was going to roll with me wherever I went.”
Coffey led his Hopkins High School team to the Class 4A state championship last season, ending his prep career in fitting fashion. But a new challenge awaits.
The Gophers are coming off their worst season in nearly a century, 8-23 overall, 2-16 in the Big Ten. While the Gophers floundered, many questioned the wisdom of Coffey’s decision.
“It wasn’t hard watching it because I know all teams go through something like that,” Coffey said. “I just kept the support and hoped for the best. I tried to come in with a good attitude. All those guys from last year put last year in the past.”
Coffey already has impressed coach Richard Pitino, who hasn’t shied away from the fact that the freshman is in line for ample playing time.
“I think he’s going to have to play major minutes, and he’s going to have to do a little of everything,” Pitino said. “I think it’s on me to figure out where to put him in spots to put the defense in binds.”
The last time the Gophers signed a recruit close to Coffey’s 32nd ranking among his class was in 2009, when Royce White came to campus as the 35th-ranked recruit. White, too, came from Hopkins High, and faced the pressures of playing for his home state school. He never played a game for the Gophers and transferred to Iowa State
“I haven’t really had a chance to talk to anyone about that (pressure),” Coffey said.
As the Gophers look to turn the page on a disastrous year, eyes turn now to the state’s top recruit, who bucked trend to try to bring success back to Williams Arena.
“I know the fans here are pretty loyal,” Coffey said. “And they love seeing homegrown kids on the team.”
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