Monson Comes Home
For EWU’s new men’s basketball coach, Cheney is familiar ground.
Eastern’s new men’s head basketball coach, Dan Monson, was the talk of the basketball world earlier this year when, after being fired as the head coach of Long Beach State, he led his team to a Big West Conference Tournament title and a NCAA Tournament berth.
He described the lame-duck post-season coaching experience as “surreal,” later telling ESPN that the conference tournament win and Big Dance appearance was “a life-changing week — in a good way.”
Over his career, Monson has led his programs to 13 postseason appearances, including four NCAA Tournament bids and nine NIT appearances, winning seven games. He’s also chalked up nine conference championships and earned five Coach of the Year awards.
That “good way” change soon extended to Eagle fans, when, following Long Beach’s exit from the NCAA Tournament, Monson accepted Eastern’s head coaching job. The position was open after the Eagle’s previous leader, David Riley, accepted the top job at Washington State.
Over his career, Monson has led his programs to 13 postseason appearances, including four NCAA Tournament bids and nine NIT appearances, winning seven games. He’s also chalked up nine conference championships and earned five Coach of the Year awards.
The move to Eastern has been a homecoming of sorts for Monson, 62, who spent part of his childhood in Cheney while his dad coached basketball at Cheney High. And the regional ties don’t stop there.
In the late 1990s, Monson coached up the road at Gonzaga, where, under his leadership, the ’Zags advanced to the 1999 Elite Eight, winning both the WCC regular season and conference tournament championships that season.
After leaving the Inland Northwest, he served an eight-season stint at the University of Minnesota. Next came Long Beach State, where Monson led “the Beach” for 17 years, becoming the program’s all-time winningest coach.
The return to the PNW, Monson says, brings things full circle. “This is a part of my legacy,” he told The Spokesman Review earlier this spring. “It started at Gonzaga. I’d like to make it grow more by sustaining what the last three coaches at Eastern started. That’s really important to me.”
