- Dan Monson
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Dan Monson Sport(s) Basketball Current position Title Head coach Team Long Beach State Record 60-66 Biographical details Born October 6, 1961 Place of birth Spokane, Washington, USA Coaching career (HC unless noted) 1986–1988
1988–1997
1997–1999
1999–2006
2007–presentUAB (asst.)
Gonzaga (asst.)
Gonzaga
Minnesota
Long Beach StateHead coaching record Overall 230-189 (.549) Accomplishments and honors Championships WCC Tournament Championship (1999)
WCC Regular Season Championship (1998, 1999)
BWC Regular Season Championship (2011)Daniel Lloyd (Dan) Monson (born October 6, 1961 in Spokane, Washington) is an American college basketball coach. He was hired as the head coach of the Long Beach State 49ers on April 7, 2007. Previously he was head coach at the University of Minnesota for over seven seasons, from July 24, 1999, to November 30, 2006. Before coaching the Gophers, he was the head coach at Gonzaga for two seasons, where he had spent the previous nine seasons as an assistant coach.
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Early years
Dan Monson is the son of college basketball coach Don Monson. He spent most of his early years in eastern Washington, where his father was a successful high school head coach in Cheney and Pasco for 18 seasons. At age 14, the family moved from Pasco to East Lansing, Michigan, where Don was an assistant coach for Jud Heathcote at Michigan State for two seasons.
They moved to Moscow, Idaho, after his sophomore year in the spring of 1978, when his father became the head coach of his alma mater, the University of Idaho. Dan graduated from Moscow High School in 1980 and played college football a few blocks away for the Idaho Vandals, then under head coach Jerry Davitch. Monson suffered a knee injury that ended his playing career, and focused on coaching; he graduated from Idaho with a degree in secondary education (mathematics) in 1985.
Coaching career
After graduation from college, Dan Monson was a high school coach in Oregon City, Oregon for a season, then became a collegiate graduate assistant under Gene Bartow at UAB in 1986, where he earned a master's degree in education.
In 1988, after two seasons in Birmingham, he was hired by Head Coach Dan Fitzgerald as an assistant coach at Gonzaga back in Spokane. In 1994, Monson was promoted to associate head coach, and became Gonzaga's head coach upon the retirement of Fitzgerald in March 1997, at the age of 55. While at the helm at Gonzaga, the Bulldogs compiled a 52-17 (.754) record. The 1999 team brought Gonzaga basketball to national prominence with an impressive run in NCAA tournament. In the West regional, the 10th seeded "Zags" defeated 7th-seed Minnesota and 2nd-seed Stanford in the Seattle sub-regional, and 6th-seed Florida in the Sweet Sixteen round in Phoenix. Gonzaga advanced to the regional final (Elite Eight), taking the region's top seed, and eventual national champion, Connecticut down to the last minute, losing by five points.
Dan Monson became one of the more sought after coaching candidates in college basketball in the spring of 1999. After Gonzaga's improbable run to the Elite Eight, he was offered the head coaching position at the University of Minnesota, which he accepted. Mark Yudof, then president of the University, was hoping that Monson would be able to help the program move past the scandals of previous head coach Clem Haskins.[1] In the previous season, Gonzaga had defeated Minnesota in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Assistant coach Mark Few succeeded Monson at Gonzaga. Interestingly, Monson also had ties to Minnesota already, as his father Don was born in rural Menahga, Minnesota.
In April 2002, Monson was courted by the University of Washington to run the Washington Huskies men's team and return to his home state of Washington. Monson initially accepted the offer presented by Huskies AD Barbara Hedges.[2] The Minnesota athletic department under Tom Moe convinced Monson to change his mind and stay on with Minnesota.[3] In the end, Monson decided to return to Minnesota because he didn't feel he had given enough time to the rebuilding effort at Minnesota and hadn't yet attained enough success with the team.[4]
Dealing with the fallout from the academic scandals of the Clem Haskins era, it was several years before Monson was able to recruit on equal footing with other Big Ten coaches. He led the Gophers to one NCAA Tournament and 4 NIT appearances in his 7 full-seasons as Gophers coach. On November 30, 2006, Dan Monson resigned as head coach of Minnesota after a 2-5 start and only achieving a single 20-win season in 7. Assistant coach Jim Molinari was appointed interim head coach before Tubby Smith was named the new head coach after the season.
Monson compiled a 118-106 (.527) record with the Gophers, giving him an overall career record of 170-123 (.580) as a head coach. On April 6, 2007 Monson was named the head coach of the men's basketball team at Long Beach State.[5] Under Monson's guidance, Long Beach State has improved each season, to the point that on February 24, 2011 Long Beach defeated Cal Poly 61-55 to clinch their first Big West regular season title since 2006-07 and the #1 seed in the Big West Tournament. They won their last nine regular season games heading into the tournament.
Monson has also coached internationally; he was an assistant coach on the 1999 World University Games team and the 2004 USA U-20 team.
Head coaching record
Season Team Overall Conference Standing Postseason Gonzaga (West Coast Conference) (1997–1999) 1997–1998 Gonzaga 24-10 10-4 1st NIT Second Round 1998–1999 Gonzaga 28-7 12-2 1st NCAA Elite Eight Gonzaga: 52-17 22-6 Minnesota (Big Ten Conference) (1999–2006) 1999–2000 Minnesota 12-16 4-12 10th 2000–2001 Minnesota 18-14 5-11 9th NIT Second Round 2001–2002 Minnesota 18-13 9-7 6th NIT Second Round 2002–2003 Minnesota 19-14 8-8 T-6th NIT Semifinals 2003–2004 Minnesota 12-18 3-13 T-10th 2004–2005 Minnesota 21-11 10-6 T-4th NCAA First Round 2005–2006 Minnesota 16-15 5-11 10th NIT Second Round 2006–2007 Minnesota 2-5 0-0 N/A Minnesota: 118-106 44-68 Long Beach State (Big West Conference) (2007–present) 2007–2008 Long Beach State 6-25 3-13 8th 2008–2009 Long Beach State 15-15 10-6 2nd 2009–2010 Long Beach State 17-16 8-8 3rd 2010-2011 Long Beach State 22-12 14-2 1st NIT First Round Long Beach State: 60-68 35-29 Total: 230-191 National Champion Conference Regular Season Champion Conference Tournament Champion
Conference Regular Season & Conference Tournament Champion Conference Division ChampionReferences
- ^ Khoo, Michael. "Monson's Message: Go to Class." Minnesota Public Radio, July 26, 1999. http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/199907/26_khoom_monson/index.shtml
- ^ Withers, Bud. "For Monson, no curing the bug to coach again." Seattle Times, Feb. 8, 2007. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/collegesports/2003561955_withersnational08.html
- ^ Hartman, Sid. "Monson probably wishes he had taken that Washington job." Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Dec. 1, 2006. http://www.startribune.com/507/story/846511.html
- ^ Withers, "For Monson, no curing..."
- ^ Associated Press. "Monson hired as Long Beach State coach." USA Today, April 7, 2007. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/mensbasketball/2007-04-07-2136805416_x.htm
External links
- Gonzaga Bulldogs - official site
- Univ. of Minnesota Gophers Sports.com - official site - Dan Monson's bio
- USA Basketball.com - Dan Monson - bio
- "For Monson, no curing the bug to coach again" - The Seattle Times - 08-Feb-2007
Gonzaga Bulldogs men's basketball head coaches No coach (1907–1908) • George Varnell (1908–1909) • William Mulligan (1909–1910) • Frank McKevitt (1910–1911) • Fred Burns (1911–1912) • Ed Mulholland (1912–1913) • Robert E. Harmon (1913–1915) • William S. Higgins (1915–1916) • John F. McGough (1916–1917) • Guy Condon (1917–1918) • Edward Geheves (1918–1920) • Gus Dorais (1920–1926) • Maurice Smith (1926–1931) • S. Dagly (1931–1932) • Perry Teneyck (1932–1933) • Claude McGrath (1933–1942) • B. Frasier (1942–1943) • Charles Henry (1943–1944) • Eugene Wozny (1944–1945) • Gordon White (1945–1946) • Claude McGrath (1946–1949) • L. T. Underwood (1949–1951) • Hank Anderson (1951–1972) • Adrian Buoncristiani (1972–1978) • Dan Fitzgerald (1978–1981) • Jay Hillock (1981–1985) • Dan Fitzgerald (1985–1997) • Dan Monson (1997–1999) • Mark Few (1999– )
Minnesota Golden Gophers men's basketball head coaches No coach (1895–1897) • L. J. Cooke (1897–1924) • Harold Taylor (1924–1927) • Dave MacMillan (1927–1942) • Carl Nordly (1942–1944) • Weston Mitchell (1944–1945) • Dave MacMillan (1945–1948) • Osborne Cowles (1948–1959) • John Kundla (1959–1968) • Bill Fitch (1968–1970) • George Hanson (1970–1971) • Bill Musselman (1971–1975) • Jim Dutcher (1975–1986) • Jimmy Williams # (1986) • Clem Haskins (1986–1999) • Dan Monson (1999–2006) • Jim Molinari # (2006–2007) • Tubby Smith (2007– )
Pound sign (#) denotes interim head coach.Long Beach State 49ers men's basketball head coaches Herm Schwarzkopf (1950–1952) • Earl Kidd (1952–1957) • Bill Patterson (1957–1960) • Dick Perry (1960–1967) • Randy Sandefur (1967–1968) • Jerry Tarkanian (1968–1973) • Lute Olson (1973–1974) • Dwight Jones (1974–1978) • Tex Winter (1978–1983) • Dave Buss (1983–1984) • Ron Palmer (1984–1987) • Joe Harrington (1987–1990) • Seth Greenberg (1990–1996) • Wayne Morgan (1996–2002) • Larry Reynolds (2002–2007) • Dan Monson (2007– )
Current men's basketball head coaches of the Big West Conference Joe Callero (Cal Poly SLO) • Bob Burton (Cal State Fullerton) • Bobby Braswell (Cal State Northridge) • Dan Monson (Long Beach State) • Bob Thomason (Pacific) • Jim Les (UC Davis) • Russell Turner (UC Irvine) • Jim Wooldridge (UC Riverside) • Bob Williams (UC Santa Barbara)
Categories:- 1961 births
- Living people
- People from Spokane, Washington
- American basketball coaches
- Gonzaga Bulldogs men's basketball coaches
- UAB Blazers men's basketball coaches
- Idaho Vandals football players
- People from Moscow, Idaho
- Players of American football from Idaho
- Players of American football from Washington (state)
- College men's basketball head coaches in the United States
- Long Beach State 49ers men's basketball coaches
- Minnesota Golden Gophers men's basketball coaches
- People from Pasco, Washington
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