<\/p>\n
Eastern\u2019s new<\/span> men\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n He described the lame-duck post-season coaching experience as \u201csurreal,\u201d later telling ESPN that the conference tournament win and Big Dance appearance was \u201ca life-changing week \u2014 in a good way.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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\u2019s also chalked up nine conference championships and earned five Coach of the Year awards.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n That \u201cgood way\u201d change soon extended to Eagle fans, when, following Long Beach\u2019s exit from the NCAA Tournament, Monson accepted Eastern\u2019s head coaching job. The position was open after the Eagle\u2019s previous leader, David Riley, accepted the top job at Washington State.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s also chalked up nine conference championships and earned five Coach of the Year awards.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t stop there.<\/span><\/p>\n In the late 1990s, Monson coached up the road at Gonzaga, where, under his leadership, the \u2019Zags advanced to the 1999 Elite Eight, winning both the WCC regular season and conference tournament championships that season.<\/p>\n After leaving the Inland Northwest, he served an eight-season stint at the University of Minnesota. Next came Long Beach State, where Monson led \u201cthe Beach\u201d for 17 years, becoming the program\u2019s all-time winningest coach.<\/p>\n The return to the PNW, Monson says, brings things full circle. \u201cThis is a part of my legacy,\u201d he told The Spokesman Review<\/i> earlier this spring. \u201cIt started at Gonzaga. I\u2019d like to make it grow more by sustaining what the last three coaches at Eastern started. That\u2019s really important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For EWU\u2019s new men\u2019s basketball coach, Cheney is familiar ground. Eastern\u2019s new men\u2019s 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…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":484,"featured_media":2871,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-2863","stories","type-stories","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","stories_categories-athletics","stories_categories-sports","stories_tags-spring-summer-2024"],"acf":{"subheading":"","featured_image_format":"cover","display_featured_image":true,"display_byline":false,"display_date_published":false,"featured_video":"","Links":false,"Resources":false,"page_hide_sidebar":false,"page_enable_page_nav":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/2863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/stories"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/484"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/2863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2873,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/2863\/revisions\/2873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}