AAU Coach of the Year: Dre Jefferson

The role of an AAU coach varies greatly. Some take whatever players the club gives them and do the best they can to make it work. More commonly, coaches recruit hard to fill their roster with the best players they can get and then do the coaching. For those who double as club directors, the workload is exponentially greater. The number of folks who can juggle all of that successfully, while ensuring that the players have a great experience and win a lot of games, is very few. Among them is our Prep Girls Hoops AAU Coach of the Year Dre Jefferson of the Minnesota Suns .

Jefferson has done a lot of great work over the years. He has been a positive influence on countless players. He runs a successful AAU program that has at least two teams per grade. He is a terrific skills trainer and mentor for so many kids. But the job Dre did this year in assembling a team from scratch, navigating several weeks of growing pains, and ultimately seeing the team reach its potential has to rank among his greatest accomplishments.

Nobody is happier about the way things turned out than Jefferson's prize point guard Tori Oehrlein Tori Oehrlein 5'11" | CG Crosby-Ironton | 2026 State MN , who many believe is the premier prospect in Minnesota's Class of 2026. Since meeting at an open gym session when she was in the 1st grade, Oehrlein has been with Jefferson through thick and thin. “He's not only my coach but he is one of my best friends,” said Oehrlein. “I also think he is like a father figure in my life. Anything I need he's there.”

When the 2023 AAU season concluded, it wasn't clear what the Suns were going to do to put together a top 17U team for this season. Led by Oehrlein, the 2024 team had enjoyed a long run of success. More than half the group has moved on to scholarship-level collegiate basketball, including D1 players Claire Stern (North Dakota State), Olivia Pawlicki (Colorado State), Lila Posthuma (Bradley) and Piper Engelby (New Jersey Institute of Technology). The only one left with AAU eligibility was Oehrlein.

As we know, there's not a lot of loyalty in AAU, and it would have been perfectly normal for Tori to move on from the Suns and join one of the power programs. But she didn't. “Right after the last tournament Dre said, ‘Tori, I'll be honest with you. If I can't get girls I know will push you and make you better and will help us as a program, I will have you go to a different program,'” Oehrlein explained. “He truly wants what's best for me. I trusted him. I told him, ‘I want you to coach me. I don't care what the situation is, I love the way you coach me. You push me every day.' He was like, ‘OK, I'll get the best players I can' and he did and we played well.”

Way back in the spring it didn't start out that way. The team lacked chemistry. They looked disjointed and uncomfortable. It was rough. “Dre runs a simple offense once you get used to it,” Oehrlein explained. “It is a 5-out motion that's continuously moving but we have a lot of cuts that you have to learn and memorize. That was probably our biggest thing. A lot of players had to learn that it's not just one-on-one basketball here. We play as a team. Everyone touches the ball.”

After going 9-9 through the first few weeks of the season, things started to come together at the AAU State Tournament where the Suns went 3-1 and earned a surprising 5th-place finish. That seemed to propel the team in the right direction. They went 14-4 the rest of the way and knocked off some high quality teams in July.

“I would say the State Tournament weekend really helped,” Oehrlein said, “and then the next week at practice we had some of the (Minnesota) Gopher girls come in and scrimmage against us which is really nice. It helped us a lot. We were really clicking after that. The girls saw that when we run the offense right it works. It's all about trust, and it was good.”

Several players on the squad had really good summers. 2025 #15 Tatum Woodson Tatum Woodson 5'9" | CG Hopkins | 2025 State MN of Hopkins recently committed to D1 Belmont University in Nashville. #19 Danielle Coleman Danielle Coleman 6'1" | SG Lakeville South | 2025 State MN of Lakeville South verballed this week to D2 Sioux Falls. Allison Berns Allison Berns 6'0" | PF Wayzata | 2025 State MN (Wayzata), Gabrielle Fineday Gabrielle Fineday 5'8" | SG Cass Lake-Bena | 2025 State MN (Cass Lake-Bena), Aubree Hultman Aubree Hultman 5'7" | PG Forest Lake | 2026 State MN (Forest Lake), Halle Eischens Halle Eischens 5'9" | CG Park Rapids | 2025 State MN (Park Rapids) and others positioned themselves well for the next level.

Jefferson, who is also the head coach at Edina High School, is now putting together another 17U squad for next season and it appears the talent level may exceed this year's group. "Dre is tough. He pushes you to get everything out of you. But he is also loving and caring and will do anything for you. He always has your back,” Oehrlein said. “He deserves this award.”

RUNNER-UP

Our criteria for selecting the Prep Girls Hoops Coach of the Year has never been carved in stone. We value team success, player improvement, positive energy (especially in the heat of battle) and the ability to attract and retain talent. It would be easy to choose from one of the power programs every year. Certainly, the annual accomplishments of such stalwarts as Tim Ellefson of the Minnesota Fury , Josh Hersch of Minnesota Stars or Dan Wolfe of the Minnesota Rise would merit consideration every summer.

Then there are the folks who take an underdog team and exceed all expectations. That's how Marqus McGlothan earned the honor back in 2019. He went on to success on the EYBL circuit with North Tartan and is now a Division 1 college head coach at Eastern Illinois. This year we want to recognize another emerging leader who has a very bright future in coaching.

2028 – Jazmen Boone, Minnesota Comets

Coach Boone certainly has the credentials to be a successful AAU coach. She was an accomplished Division 1 player at William and Mary and had a successful professional career overseas. Her achievements off the court are no less impressive as she earned a master's degree from the Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland and works as an IT developer for a major airline. This summer, Coach Boone demonstrated week after week that she is a great leader who was able to get the most out of her young players.

The Comets 2028 squad came into the AAU D1 State Tournament as a #10 seed and in the first round knocked off the 7th-seeded Metro Stars squad. After falling to the powerhouse North Tartan Nike group, the Comets went on to score wins over Minnesota Stars DeSart and MN Crossfire Herman to capture 5^th place. We watched them many times throughout the season and they always played hard, played together and played with passion. Coach Boone's positive energy was infectious, and it consistently carried over to the players. Led by point guard Annabelle Gothmann Annabelle Gothmann 5'10" | CG Milaca | 2028 State MN of Milaca and post Brianna Eggers Brianna Eggers 6'2" | PF Buffalo | 2028 State MN of Buffalo, the Comets were a lot of fun to watch.