Billy Donovan couldn't encourage his former assistant coach Richard Pitino in person on Tuesday, so he did it from afar.
"He is a terrific coach, and he's been around a lot of good teams in his career," Donovan said. "I think the other thing too is, in my opinion, he took over a very, very difficult situation."
Pitino, Donovan's former assistant at Florida, brought a 6-10 Minnesota team riding a four-game Big Ten losing streak to Nebraska on Tuesday.
Donovan and Pitino know each other from a very good situation. Before Pitino became a head coach, he coached under Donovan as the Gators went 50-20 from 2009-11 and made consecutive NCAA tournament appearances.