He scheduled NCAA tourney teams Texas A&M, Oklahoma State, and Washington and Utah who were rising NIT teams from last year. Got unlucky in getting Boston College (and then losing.) He scheduled only five buy games (lowest in at least 20 years).
Caught some bad luck in Texas A&M having guys go pro and Oklahoma State and Utah not being as good as hoped. Washington is a top notch win.
I think you confused Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, and are incorrect about the Gophers being unlucky this year with their strength of schedule due to Oklahoma State, Utah and BC. Last year Okie State was under .500 in conference (with some good wins), and did not go to the NCAA tourney. This year, Okie State was predicted to be at or near the bottom of the Big 12,
e.g. the Sporting New picked the pre-season to finish last. Okie State is currently one place ahead of last, which is right about where people thought they would be.
Utah lost a lot from last year's team, and was generally picked pre-season to finish 8th in the Pac 12, which is a pretty bad league. Utah currently sits in a tie for 6th place in the league, so Utah too is not underperforming. No bad luck there for the Gophers.
Also, when you finish one game out of last place last year, the deal is that you will get an ACC bottom feeder in the Big Ten-ACC challenge. Iowa got Pitt, and the Gophers got BC. Nothing unlucky about either draw. Also, the Gophers were at home in the ACC challenge the year before, so it was there time to play on the road. Nothing unlucky about that.
When the Gophers agreed in 2017 to go play in Vancouver, perhaps they thought Texas A&M would be a better team, but after the end of last season, with A&M's departures, A&M was widely predicted to be a bottom feeder this year in the SEC, which is exactly where they are. They could have filled in the schedule this year, knowing that A&M would be a bad SEC team.
Ultimately, it is not unlucky that the Gophers have a Ken POM non-conference SOS of 267, and a RPI NC SOS of 190. It's the schedule that Coach Pitino chose.
In contrast, Tubby's last year, when the Gophers got into the NCAA with an under .500 conference record, which is a hard thing to do, the SOS got in them in the dance. They ended the season with an RPI SOS of 5, and Ken Pom had their NC SOS as 103, no doubt helped by playing Duke (RPI 1) and Memphis (RPI 14), and a road game at USC, in addition to the ACC challenge road game at FSU. Tubby only played 2 sub 200 RPI teams that last year, and had nothing like this year's 4-consecutive-game rip off of season ticket holders with Arkansas State (RPI 200), North Florida (RPI 239), NC A&T (RPI 226) and Mount Saint Mary's (RPI 313).