Which people? I thought the hire was a huge stretch and that he won with Tubby's recruits.
I think you would have been in the minority in having a neutral/negative opinion of Pitino at that time. I remember debates on the board at the end of the 2012-13 season about whether we cheer for the Gophers to win in the NCAA tournament, or to lose as soon as possible to guarantee that Tubby gets fired, because the program was going to hit rock bottom after Rodney Williams and Trevor Mbakwe graduated, with lackluster 2012 and 2013 recruiting classes. There was of course the several page long debates about whether the Gophers were tied for 7th in the Big Ten, or 9th outright, with people arguing for the latter position trying to make Tubby look as bad as possible to justify firing him.
Tubby never got much out of spring recruiting, usually just lightly recruited freshmen from out of state to fill the bench after a more talented player transferred out. Pitino came in and was praised for bringing in Deandre Mathieu, Joey King, and Malik Smith, who all contributed in a significant way and prevented the 2013-14 season from being the disaster it could have possibly been otherwise. He was also credited for getting more out of Mo Walker than Tubby had up to that point. Excitement was high that we got as close to the tournament as we did, being arguably just one Andre Hollins injury or a Rakeem Buckles admission away from making the dance (and arguably got shafted as the rare RPI top 50 high major team that doesn't get an at-large bid). Before the season he seemed very close to landing Reid Travis, after it seemed like we might not have a shot. Pitino also lost his conference tournament championship game at FIU on the final possession, and had one of their best seasons in like 20 years for the one season he was there.
I remember at least seeing on Gopher social media after Pitino's first season fans speculating that Pitino might take us to another tournament or two and then bolt for Louisville or some other big time job. I know people look back now and say Pitino had no business getting the Minnesota job given his career up to that point, and say that his shortcomings could be seen from a mile away, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who was particularly dissatisfied with him in the spring of 2014, and the biggest concern was that he would be too successful too soon and leave.