Dan Monson coached Minnesota basketball seven games too long, resigning Thursday in the midst of a season as promising as a staph infection. The untidiness could have been avoided last spring, with reputation and pride intact, if Monson had walked away from a program in duress.
The cushion was there: Escape circling vultures in Minnesota and a roster bereft of Big Ten talent for 2006-07, then take over at Idaho, close to Monson’s roots in the Pacific Northwest. Instead he hung himself with this season’s 2-5 record and losses to Marist, Southern Illinois and Montana. Now he’s jumping ship upon impact with the iceberg. Monson deserves incalculable credit for taking on a scandal-wracked program from Clem Haskins in 1999. But he never proved his success at Gonzaga went beyond good fortune and timing.
His best Minnesota teams only made the NIT; a 2005 NCAA tournament berth almost was an accident. Fan ennui set in. Home attendance plunged to 10,258 on average last season, the lowest since 1970-71, intolerable for an athletic department extremely dependent on basketball revenue.
“Wow,” Monson said to a roomful of reporters at a news conference to announce his resignation. “We need this interest at the games. I guess that’s why I’m here.”
That and the Gophers are 2-5 and their five-game skid (including a home loss to Division II Winona State) is its worst since a six-game slide during the 1962-63 season.
Former Northern Illinois and Bradley coach Jim Molinari, also a longtime DePaul assistant, takes over in the interim. No matter Molinari’s success, Minnesota’s smart play is finding a young coach with a stirring track record to infuse vitality into the fan base. Then again, in 1999, that pretty much described Dan Monson.
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bhamilton@tribune.com
