Coach Monson update ... not to shabby

Long Beach State's record is a respectable 10-7. They played Oregon, BYU and Wisconsin tough earlier this season. Currently on a nice run and undefeated in Big West play (6-0).
Coach Monson has a couple quality recruits coming in and seems to have the 49ers on a good path.
Here is the ESPN link:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/clubhouse?teamId=299


Good luck to him. It seems that he has found his niche.

That being said... we are so fortuneate and blessed to have one of the nation's elite in Coach Smith!

That's great to hear. The Big West is not a good conference, but it's good to see him have success...especially after how bad they were last year. In the end, it worked out well for both parties.

Gopher737 said:

Long Beach State's record is a respectable 10-7. They played Oregon, BYU and Wisconsin tough earlier this season. Currently on a nice run and undefeated in Big West play (6-0).
Coach Monson has a couple quality recruits coming in and seems to have the 49ers on a good path.
Here is the ESPN link:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/clubhouse?teamId=299


Good luck to him. It seems that he has found his niche.

That being said... we are so fortuneate and blessed to have one of the nation's elite in Coach Smith!

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Good info. Actually they are 5-0 in conference but their next two games are at home so they have a good shot at 7-0 start. After your post I looked at their incoming recruits and they have two guys rated 87 and 88 which is slightly above Cobbs and a little below the 90+ ratings of White and Williams. So he has some stud recruits coming considering the conference they are in.

He's not in the league with Tubby but few are. The name recognition Tubby has and the brand of ball he calls for are just what is required here. But Monson's a much better coach than people here give him credit for- IMO. As you say - it's good to see this work out for him there and for us here.

I have to admit to being impressed with what Monson has done at Long Beach. They are doing well and with more talent coming aboard in the future, he has laid the groundwork for another "Gonzaga-type" team. I thought this style would translate well at Minnesota too, but for whatever reason it did not.

Good for Dan to be 6-0 in conference play.

MillionMoves said:

I have to admit to being impressed with what Monson has done at Long Beach. They are doing well and with more talent coming aboard in the future, he has laid the groundwork for another "Gonzaga-type" team. I thought this style would translate well at Minnesota too, but for whatever reason it did not.

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Long Beach St had Jerry Tarkanian and Lute Olson as HC way back in the day. Some good tradition there. Lots of talent in So Calif too.

Friend Of Tubby said:

Long Beach St had Jerry Tarkanian and Lute Olson as HC way back in the day. Some good tradition there. Lots of talent in So Calif too.

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If you read Tarkanian's autobiography, which I think you would love FOT, you learn there were some very significant problems building and maintaining a program at Long Beach, largely due to a very tight budget. UCLA and USC took all the plum recruits, so he had to fight over the leftovers with many other mid-major teams in southern Cal. It was really remarkable Tark could compete nearly at the same level as UCLA during their dynasty years. Did he cheat? I don't know, his side of it certainly makes it sound like a clean program (of course).

Lute did well in his one year there, but inherited a tremendous team from Tark.

I thought Monson would fail because I didn't view him as a great recruiter -- certainly not the dynamic personality of a Tarkanian -- but he's proving me wrong and hats off to him.

I hope lightning strikes twice and LBS makes a surprise run the the Elite 8 like he did at Gonzaga. Maybe he's a not a big conference coach. I met him and thought that he was in the mold of J Robinson and Doug Woog in that there was nothing pretentious about him.

He put his credibility on the line and took a huge leap when he came here under the circumstances. But he made mistakes too--Humphries and any transfer that wanted to come back. It's funny how he seems to be a much better recruiter at LBS than here.