SALT LAKE CITY — Lengthy Seashore State’s athletic director stated the timing of his resolution to fireplace coach Dan Monson was accomplished with the hope it would set off the precise run that led the workforce on its sudden journey to the NCAA match.
“My perception and hope is that by doing what I did and the timing of it, they’d play impressed, and that is what they did,” Bobby Smitheran advised The Related Press on Thursday, a couple of hours earlier than the Seashore tipped off in opposition to Arizona. “I am not attempting to pat myself on the again, but it surely labored.”
Monson’s job standing has been one of the vital intriguing tales main into the primary spherical of the NCAA match. He was fired final Monday, on the heels of a five-game dropping streak, however is constant to educate for the remainder of the season, and the workforce responded final weekend by profitable the Huge West match to earn an sudden journey to March Insanity.
Smitheran stated an excessive amount of has been manufactured from the notion that Monson was fired.
“I do not purchase into that narrative,” Smitheran stated. “I believe that is actually getting misplaced on folks, that we agreed {that a} change in management was essential. This was one thing Coach Monson delivered to me.”
Monson has by no means urged in any other case and has dealt with the scenario with class. On Wednesday, he quipped that he is working free of charge now, and loving it due to the outpouring of assist he is acquired from his gamers, family and friends.
“I maintain utilizing the phrase ‘surreal,'” Monson stated. “Twilight zone is likely to be half true. It has been superior.”
A number of coaches in Salt Lake Metropolis this week — together with Monson’s buddy, Mark Few of Gonzaga — have been much less charitable, suggesting an AD ought to let issues play out earlier than asserting a separation in the course of the season.
Smitheran, who’s in his first yr at Lengthy Seashore State after a profitable stretch as an govt at San Diego State, stated the large image is that he needs the Seashore to be within the hunt for match bids yearly.
That is Lengthy Seashore State’s first NCAA look since 2012; Monson has been there since 2007.
“My job is to place our coaches and pupil athletes to achieve success,” Smitheran stated. “This was perhaps an atypical approach to take action. However I believed within the roster we had, I believed in our teaching workers and our capability to do one thing particular. Possibly this was the catalyst they wanted to be impressed to play for each other.”
The Related Press contributed to this report.