Pizza and the Princeton offense: Gonzaga coaching circle shares special dinner before taking NCAA Tournament stage

SALT LAKE CITY – The jokes started flying as soon as Dan Monson, running a few minutes behind schedule, sat down with Mark Few, Tommy Lloyd and their families at a Salt Lake City pizza joint Tuesday night.

“I’m a little bit late … Tommy tries to give me some grief,” Monson said. “I said, ‘Tommy, we’ve been putting in that Princeton offense for three days. It’s complicated. It took a little extra time today.’ ”

One year after Lloyd’s Arizona team lost a first-round NCAA Tournament game to Princeton, Monson couldn’t resist a jab or two. It’s probably the best way to approach the unique circumstance the Long Beach State and Arizona coaches find themselves in this week, as first-round NCAA Tournament opponents roughly 25 years after Monson gave Lloyd his coaching start, promising the Walla Walla native a graduate assistant position at Gonzaga.

“Tommy owes me. That’s the bottom line, OK?” Monson said Tuesday during a NCAA Tournament news conference, speaking from a dais that Lloyd occupied some 25 minutes later. “I just laugh at that now because Tommy is Tommy, where he is, one of the best coaches in America. Making enough money to buy my pizza last night.”

The last line, of course, is in reference to the situation Monson finds himself this week at the NCAA Tournament – one that might be more unique than encountering an old friend on college basketball’s biggest stage.

Monson’s news conference on Wednesday at the Delta Center drew an audience of reporters that outnumbered the ones two future Hall of Fame coaches – Gonzaga’s Few and Kansas’ Bill Self – participated in later the same afternoon.

There’s growing national interest in Long Beach State’s coach after the school announced its decision to “part ways” with Monson, while giving him the option to coach his team through the Big West Tournament. What followed was the best stretch of basketball during Monson’s tenure at “The Beach,” and possibly his most impressive coaching feat since guiding Gonzaga to a Cinderella run to the Elite Eight in 1998-99.

LBSU, as a No. 5 seed in its conference tournament, won three games in as many days to punch a ticket to the NCAA Tournament for just the second time since Monson arrived at the school in 2007.

“I’m hoping that people look at me and say, ‘Hey, he had a great job,’ ” Monson said. “What are we feeling sorry for him for? He had 17 years driving that car. It was a great ride. I knew the car was leased. I mean, they wanted the keys back.

“It’s not insured this week, but I still get to drive it. I’m going to try to keep it on the road, the road to the Final Four.”

Self-deprecation was Monson’s tactic of choice during an amusing news conference appearance on the eve of the Big Dance.

Upon sitting down at the podium, Monson pre-empted a moderator and said, “I don’t have to answer anything I don’t want to because I’m working for free today. Did you see the ‘Seinfeld’ when George was trying to get fired and couldn’t lose his job, still going to work every day? That’s me. I’m a ‘Seinfeld’ episode going on right now in real life.”

Thirty minutes after Monson informed players of the school’s decision, he gave them the option to take the day off or debrief with a short film session. Most chose the latter.

“The first thing I said is, ‘Just bonding together is not going to be enough,’ ” Monson recalled. “ ‘We have to be a better basketball team this week. Just look at this first defensive clip, guys. We close out short here. The guy is wide open, we don’t get a contest.

“These are the kind of plays that get a coach fired.’ ”

Monson’s situation, of course, was the most pressing item during LBSU’s news conferences on Wednesday, but his longtime coaching friends were also asked for their takes.

“I think it’s a story worthy of a Disney show or something, man, the way it’s playing out,” Few said. “I’m hoping it’s a lesson for all those athletic directors out there to maybe take pause once in a while and realize these jobs are hard and sometimes, when you got a good guy there, hang with it.”

Few commended Monson for the professionalism he’s shown the past two weeks. As for the university that could be employing his old friend for 24 more hours, three more weeks and anything in between?

“I can’t say the same maybe for Long Beach State,” Few said. “It’s ridiculous. Health insurance, things like that, when you lose your job. Everybody out there in the real world gets an extended deal with stuff like that for a while and everything. I don’t want to get into the weeds on that stuff.”

Monson’s father, Don, isn’t able to travel as frequently as he used to, and the 90-year-old saved his postseason trip for the Big West Tournament, perhaps not anticipating there’d be another one just a week later. Similarly, one of Monson’s daughters, Mollie, got an exemption from Gonzaga’s rowing coach to attend the conference tournament, but the senior wasn’t able to play hooky from practice for a second week.

“I’m going to get that coach someday,” Monson joked. “No, he was awesome. He made it happen last week.”

Coaches outside Gonzaga’s circle expressed their admiration for Monson amid the unusual circumstances.

“I’m so happy for Dan, but I’m not near as happy for him as some because when I was at Tulsa my first year, he had us down 34-8 at halftime when he was at Gonzaga,” Kansas’ Self said. “I’ve harbored that feeling for my entire career. … There’s not too many guys that can go out the way that they would dream they could go out. Dan gets to do that. I think we should all be happy for him on that.”

As for what Monson and The Beach have in store for Lloyd and the Wildcats on Thursday?

“I’m still going to run the Princeton offense,” Monson said.

As if Lloyd hadn’t already heard it enough.

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