At the beginning of the season, head coach Dan Monson talked about identifying who could step up and be alpha dogs for this Long Beach State team.
Fast forward to Monday and they showcased their recent success with a Big West Championship and a trip to the NCAA Tournament as an “alpha dog by committee.”
“I think we alpha dog by committee. I think that’s what they figured out,” Monson said. “We just got to feed the dog that’s hungry.”
He highlighted the key dogs LBSU has relied on throughout the season, including junior forwards Lassina Traore and Aboubacar Traore, senior guard Marcus Tsohonis, junior guard Jadon Jones and sophomore forward AJ George.
“I [also] have a ton of respect for Aboubacar [Traore] that he is able to do that and be the MVP of that tournament during Ramadan is an unbelievable accomplishment,” Monson said.
Going into the Big West Championship as a fourth seed on a five-game losing streak, Smitheran decided to make a new coaching change after Monson’s 17 years at the helm on March 11, three days before their trip to Henderson.
“A change in leadership creates an opportunity to re-envision the future of our storied men’s basketball program,” Smitheran said in his statement on the mutual separation.
Monson told his players in a team meeting that Monday, March 11, would be his last week as their head coach and their reaction let the four-time Big West Coach of the Year know they loved him.
“Last Monday was one of the toughest days I ever had but it was one of the more rewarding ones,” Monson said. “You really don’t know that they love you until they’ll show you or tell you.”
“The emotions in that room told me everything I needed to know and it was worth it all,” he said. “These kids that I love so much, I knew loved me back and the hardest part was one of my own sons was in the room.”
After being emotionally down for 10 to 15 minutes after hearing the news from Monson, it sparked motivation within the players. They felt they were given up on and were determined to prove that they made the wrong decision to fire their head coach.
“Our mindset was they just didn’t believe in our coach. They didn’t believe in us. Let’s just prove them wrong,” Aboubacar said.
They accomplished just that. Led by Aboubacar, the tournament’s MVP included the Big West’s first triple-double tournament performance in its 48-year history against UC Riverside.
The Beach opened the tourney with a statement 19-point win over UCR, followed by an upset win over the Big West regular season champs, UC Irvine, with an 83-79 down-to-the-wire win.
Long Beach State would power through on their fueled momentum and close out the game behind clutch free throws from Aboubacar and Tsohonis, who put them up four in the final seconds to punch their ticket to the “Big Dance.”
“We felt like we owed it to him [Monson] to make sure he had a great last season,” Jones said. “So the emotion when we finally won was ‘we did it, we accomplished something great.’ It’s a tremendous story, but still not over.”
The Beach, the 15th seed, will face fourth seed Arizona as 19.5 underdogs in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday, March 21, at 11 a.m. PST in Salt Lake City, Utah.
“This is just so cool. There’s not a coach in this tournament that wouldn’t do it for free, but I’m the only one that gets to do it for free,” Monson said.