Richard Pitino has taken steps to distance himself from the Tubby Smith era of Gophers basketball, taking very little from the national champion coach.

But the University of Minnesota officially announced four additions to Pitino’s staff late last week, one of whom was a special assistant to Smith during his six years with the Gophers.

Steve Goodson, Pitino’s director of basketball operations, will be the only employee crossing over from Smith’s tenure. Goodson graduated from Kentucky in 2005 and served as a special assistant under Smith with the Wildcats in 2006-07 before moving to Minnesota with the same role.

“I have a history with each one of these guys, so they are coming into this situation with knowledge of what is expected of them,” Pitino said in a release. “They know that they will be playing an integral role as we try and take this program to the next level.”

Pitino originally hired Mike Balado, a former assistant at his old school, Florida International, as the director of operations.

But Balado resigned after less than a week and accepted an assistant position at Louisville, where Pitino’s father Rick Pitino is the head coach.

Pitino’s final assistant coaching hire, Dan McHale, comes from the Big East Conference after spending the last three seasons as an assistant coach at Seton Hall.

“He fits what we already have in place here with [assistant coaches Kimani Young and Ben Johnson],” Pitino said in a release, “which is a love and passion for the game of basketball.”

McHale also spent four seasons with Louisville as a video coordinator and staff assistant.

In the final two years with Louisville, McHale was “responsible for advance scouting video of Cardinal opponents,” according to his profile on Louisville’s site.

Shaun Brown was named the Gophers’ head strength and conditioning coach. He held the same position for three years at Southern California under Kevin O’Neill, who was fired this season.

Brown worked eight seasons in the NBA as a strength and conditioning coach for the Boston Celtics (1997-2003) and Toronto Raptors (2003-05).

Josh Adel will follow Pitino from Florida International to become the Gophers’ assistant director of basketball operations. Like Pitino, Adel spent one year at FIU. Previously, he spent five years at Florida as a manager and later a head manager.