• Slug: Sports-Arizona NCAA Lloyd Monson, 1050 words.
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By Hayden Cilley
Cronkite News

SALT LAKE CITY – From best friends to soon-to-be first-round opponents, the bond between Arizona men’s basketball coach Tommy Lloyd and Long Beach State’s Dan Monson has roots much deeper than basketball.

On Thursday, Lloyd and Monson will square off against each other in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament in two very different scenarios. Lloyd led the Wildcats to a 28-5 record and a No. 2 seed.  On the contrary, Monson led the Beach to a 21-14 overall record before he was let go at the end of the regular season.

The school gave Monson the opportunity to continue coaching until the team was eliminated from its Big West Conference tournament. However, elimination never came, but the national attention sure did.

The Beach won their conference tournament final, 74-70, against UC Davis and secured an automatic bid as the No. 15 seed. Monson led the Beach to their first tournament appearance since the 2011-12 season, when they went 25-9 and won the Big West Conference tournament. 

Monsoon jokingly said in his opening statement during Wednesday media availability, “I don’t have to answer anything I don’t want to because I’m working for free today.”

Despite the playfulness, Lloyd acknowledged the adversity that Monson has faced and gave kudos on how well his friend has handled it.

“I know he’s going through a tough time, but he’s handling it with incredible grace,” Lloyd said. “I think he’s thankful for all the opportunities he’s had, the relationships he’s made in this business. I think we all know it can be a tough business, there’s another side to it. Unfortunately he’s going through that right now.”

Monson hired Lloyd for his Gonzaga staff after the 1998-99 season, after leading the Bulldogs’ trip to the 1999 Elite Eight. However, Monsoon left for the University of Minnesota for eight seasons after hiring Lloyd. Luckily for the latter, Mark Few, Gonzaga’s top assistant coach at that time, received a promotion and elevated Lloyd to the coaching staff after being an administrative assistant during the 2000-01 season.

Monson saw something in Lloyd while Gonzaga was recruiting players, in part due to Lloyd’s previous experience as a player at Walla Walla Community College and through the eyes of his basketball coach, Jeff Reinland. The breakdown of who Lloyd is made Monson take a chance on the former 6-foot-4 guard.

“There was a lapse there because I never really worked (with) him, I just hired him,” Monson said during Wednesday’s media availability. “But I guess Jeff Reinland, who sold him to me, kind of gave a different impression of him, that he was this kind of well-mannered, quiet, basketball-only guy. He certainly was basketball-only, but he had a lot more personality I guess you would want to say than was advertised. Our players call it ‘your bag’, more pieces to his personality than maybe any of us wanted to see.

“I think that’s about as far as I can go with that. I’m really trying. But he was just one of us. Tommy is a guy’s guy.”

The relationship is reciprocated on Lloyd’s end. He knows that he and Monson are friends first, before coaches or even competitors when Arizona faces Long Beach Thursday morning in a first-round game at the Delta Center.

“We’re genuine friends,” Lloyd said. “I think our friendships are before any professional relationships we have. Then our wives are friends. Our kids are best friends, more like cousins than friends. I know all our kids were really excited they were all together last night. It’s fun.”

Monson amassed a 275-272 record at Long Beach State over his 17 seasons, making the NCAA tournament only once in the 2011-12 season. Despite being relieved of his duties, Monson said his players have inspired him to keep pushing.

“Going to the locker room and telling the players, it was super hard, obviously,” said Monson, referring to the moment when he revealed the university was releasing him once the team had played its final game.. “But to see their reactions … as a parent or as a coach, you’re always disciplining your kids, you’re always holding them accountable, pushing them. You don’t really know how they’re taking it until they tell you they love you or they show you.

“Those guys showed me they loved me that day. I’ll never forget it. That’s all you need. I’ve reflected this week that I don’t have a job, but I don’t need one. I got everything. I got my family, my players, my friends. It’s been a life-changing week in a good way.”

Arizona knows what’s at stake in this year’s tournament as the Wildcats were upset in the first round last year by the Princeton Tigers, which were also seeded No. 15. Two Arizona seniors, Oumar Ballo and Pelle Larson, were on the wrong side of history. Ballo described his difference between last year’s tournament and the one that will end in the Valley at the Final Four in April.

“We all know what happened last year,” Ballo said. “Me and Pelle were there. We know now in the postseason every single game is important. You cannot take any game for granted, anything for granted. We came locked and loaded for this game.”

Larson echoed Ballo’s point, and added some of the thoughts that go into their minds as seniors on the team.

“I think it’s one day at a time, one task,” Larson said. “Any game could be your last as a Wildcat. You just have to treat it like that, play with that energy and effort.”

Lloyd disregarded any kind of pressure put on the program. For the third-year head coach, the end result is all that matters.

“There’s no increased pressure,” Lloyd said. “You could fabricate, manufacture anything you want. We got a 40-minute basketball game tomorrow against another team that’s a worthy opponent. We got to come out and play.

“If we’re distracted by what happened last year, then maybe we haven’t done a good enough job focusing on what we need to do this year.”

Monsoon threw a joke at Lloyd when they went out Tuesday night about how they’ll prepare for the Wildcats.

“I’m still going to run the Princeton offense tomorrow. I know that works,” Monsoon said, jokingly.

Lloyd gave quite a comical response about hearing that response from Monson.

“He told me that 50 times last night,” Lloyd said, smiling.