• Tom Herrion, now the head coach at Marshall, was the head coach at the College of Charleston in 2005 when he hired Pitino for his first job in college basketball. The administrative job, which Pitino had for a few months, didn't even have a salary, Herrion said. Pitino had his rent paid at a one-room studio apartment and had a meal card at the school cafeteria. "It was the bottom of the food chain," Herrion said.

• Pitino has not announced any of his Gophers assistant coaches yet, but Kimani Young, who was on his staff at Florida International, is expected to be one of them.

• It was a good day all around for the Pitino family Friday. Richard was introduced as Minnesota's new head coach and his dad, Rick, was reportedly elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. On Saturday, Rick will coach Louisville in the NCAA semifinals.

• Pitino's wife, Jill, was in attendance Friday. Hopefully the couple got out of town — he was slated to go to the Final Four — before it started snowing.

• AD Norwood Teague didn't address many specifics of a coaching search in which several other names were mentioned as candidates, but he did say "it unfolded just like we wanted it to." Teague also took a swipe at reports on the process, saying, "I made a lot of offers I didn't know I made to a lot of candidates I didn't know I met with."