Norwood Teague had been on the job for nine months as the Gophers athletic director when he fired Tubby Smith as men's basketball coach on March 25, 2013. This came one day after Florida eliminated the Gophers 78-64 in the NCAA tournament's round of 32.
Smith had been hired March 22, 2007, in a move where the parties were doing one another a favor: The Gophers were offering Tubby an escape route from the heat he was taking at Kentucky, and Smith, about to turn 56, was giving then-athletic director Joel Maturi a coach with credibility.
By Year 6, Gophers followers wanted more than Tubby was offering, and even the first NCAA tournament victory since 1997 — over UCLA and Shabazz Muhammad — could not save him in Teague's mind.
A week later, Teague and his assistant AD, Mike Ellis, had received a handful of turndowns. They even offered the job to Gophers alum Flip Saunders, but with some caveats; plus, Flip was about to be hired by the Timberwolves as president of basketball operations.
The last Teague turndown came from Andy Enfield, the coach who had created "Dunk City" at Florida Gulf Coast and had taken the Eagles to the Sweet Sixteen (where it lost to Florida).
Legend has it that Teague, now desperate, called Florida coach Billy Donovan — an acquaintance — and asked, "Who do you got for me?" And Donovan's response was that Norwood might want to talk to Richard Pitino, the kid who had coached that one season at Florida International.
On April 3, 2013, Pitino was introduced as Gophers coach. He was 30 at the time, and the famous last name served him well in the initial reception from the sporting public.
On Tuesday night, Pitino, now a grizzled 36, took a bad 82-67 loss with a second-half collapse vs. Maryland at Williams Arena. Meantime, 800 miles to the south, the Timberwolves were unveiling a new coach with an interim title: Ryan Saunders, 32 and Flip's son, against Oklahoma City.
