Richard Pitino and Dan Monson. Ex-Gophers coaches who struggled leading teams into NCAA tournament

What’s Tubby Smith doing these days? Might he be available to step in as an analyst for a certain Sweet 16 game?

When the NCAA tournament bracket was revealed on Sunday afternoon, Richard Pitino and Dan Monson were placed on a collision course.

If that sentence confuses you, you are forgiven.

Monson replaced Clem Haskins as the Gophers basketball coach, and was fired during his eighth season in Minnesota.

Pitino replaced Smith at Minnesota, and was fired after eight seasons.

Monson moved to Long Beach State. Last week, he and the school, according to the school’s press release, agreed “mutually” to part ways. He was allowed to finish the season as coach, and Saturday, the Beach won the Big West conference tournament and an automatic NCAA tourney bid.

Pitino moved to New Mexico, bringing with him guard Jamal Mashburn Jr., who scored 21 points on Saturday to help the Lobos win the Mountain West tournament.

Monson and Pitino were placed on the same side of the bracket in the West Region. If each wins two games, they will face each other in the Sweet 16, and may request to play on a maroon-colored court.

How should Gophers fans feel about these developments?

Probably just as muddled as usual.

As for Monson — who similarly was said to have “accepted a buyout” from the Gophers seven games into the 2006-07 season — he never seemed to love living in Minnesota. He has coached at Long Beach State ever since, and news of his imminent departure seems to have motivated his team.

Pitino knew how to run a program but didn’t seem invested in winning difficult recruiting battles in the Big Ten, although he and Monson both brought in recruits who helped them get to the NCAA tournament — Vincent Grier for Monson, and Amir Coffey and Jordan Murphy for Pitino.

Pitino is the only Gophers coach since Smith to win an NCAA tournament game.

“I remember coming here thinking, ‘Maybe it’s a little bit of a step down from the Big Ten,’” Pitino said. “Didn’t feel like it on a nightly basis. It really didn’t. I mean, packed houses, national TV, and there were just wars every night.”

Said Monson: “God has blessed me with a great career, and these kids have been awesome to coach. When Jim Harbaugh says, ‘Who has it better than us?’, someone needs to tell him, ‘Coach Monson does.’”

That’s former Michigan and current Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh, who thought he was going to be hired by the Vikings before they chose Kevin O’Connell.

We are being emotionally reunited with these former Gopher coaches thanks to the curated randomness of March Madness.

Sunday at Target Center, second-seeded Illinois pushed past fifth-seeded Wisconsin to win the Big Ten tournament, a day after Wisconsin upset top-seeded Purdue.

The tournament was highly entertaining for the same three reasons the NCAA tournament has become a national obsession.

If you spend a lot of time talking to athletes, you get used to shrugs. High-end athletes are married to process, and view most triumphs and losses as incremental developments.

The bracket obliterates that mindset. There are no shrugs during March Madness. There is joy, and anguish. No one says, “Wait ‘til next year.”

The Big Ten men’s tourney felt like a success, with all of those school colors decorating downtown bars and restaurants, Wisconsin playing a strangely entertaining form of basketball and Illinois proving that great guard play is invaluable in March.

The women’s tournament was even better, with all of the sessions selling out and Iowa star Caitlin Clark, perhaps the best college basketball player ever, saying goodbye to the conference with a third straight tourney title.

Add in the success of the 2022 women’s Final Four, the historical dominance of the Minnesota Lynx, outstanding high school tournaments and the current Timberwolves, and Minneapolis should be earning a reputation as a good place to travel for high-end hoops.