Tommy Lloyd, Dan Monson to renew friendship in low-pressure exhibition at McKale

But a few seasons ago, that strategy backfired badly.

Lloyd declined to host Monson’s Long Beach State team at McKale Center early in the 2023-24 season, and the two instead were given a mandatory matchup in an NCAA first-round game at the end of the season — when NCAA tournament seeding guidelines would have likely nixed such a game if their teams had already played each other during the regular season.

Already awkward and uncomfortable, now their matchup came with do-or-die pressure on top. Even worse: Monson had already been told beforehand that he would not return to Long Beach State.

The Wildcats won it 85-65, and Lloyd had every reason to think he just ended his friend's coaching career.

Monson wound up on his feet, the next season taking over the Eastern Washington team that will face UA in an exhibition game Friday at McKale. But initially, he said Lloyd also wouldn't pay his new team to make a one-time guarantee appearance, the kind that low- and mid-major programs depend on financially.

“I remember saying, ‘Tommy, you've got to do me a favor. We need one more game for our NIL,’ ” Monson said. "He’s like, ‘You know, I just hate that. I hate when you play friends.’

“I said, ‘Tommy, I'd much rather have somebody that I know is not going to try to run up the score, that kind of thing, than a guy I don't know. So he says, ‘I’m going to do whatever you want. If you want to do it, I will. I will play you.’ ”

Then the other side of the equation set in. Deep down, Monson felt the same vibes.

“I thought about it for a day or two, and I said, ‘playing friends just kind of sucks,’ ” Monson said.

So he scratched the idea. Besides, Monson said he had already arranged revenue-producing games this season at Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Utah, UNLV and Wyoming. “The whole West Coast, basically,” Monson said.

But there was another possibility, and one that didn’t mean the two had to face each other over anything consequential: NCAA rules began allowing Division I teams to face each other in exhibition games starting last year, and then started allowing teams to schedule a third exhibition game this year.

So, finally, Monson and the Eagles are heading to McKale.

Lloyd said, “That's a great idea, that'd be super fun,” Monson said. But “he called me (Monday) and says, ‘I am going to have to get ready for all those damn zones you did on me in the NCAA tournament.’ I said, ‘Tommy, you don't have to get ready for anything you don't want to. You're doing me a favor, and if you don't want me to play any zone, I won't play any zone.’ ”

While it is common that coaches agree to throw out certain schemes in closed preseason scrimmages so as to better test each other, it isn’t always the case in exhibition games.

Yet Lloyd said Monson went out of his way to offer help.

“He’s such a good guy; he called me and asked, ‘Anything in particular you want us to do or not do?’ ” Lloyd said. “I’m like, ‘No, just coach how you would to win a game.’ We've got to play against zone … those are things we’ve got to figure out.”

Whatever schemes he throws out Friday, Monson will be doing so with a team that could be his best yet at Eastern Washington. The Eagles won 10 games in 2024-25 and went on an eight-game winning streak late last season to finish with 14 wins.

Now they are picked by both media and the league’s coaches to finish third in the Big Sky this season.

One reason why: Monson said Eastern Washington was one of only five Division I programs that didn’t have a single player enter the transfer portal after last season.

“Of the three years I've been here, it's definitely our best team,” Monson said. I think we have an opportunity at our level to have a good season.”

But for Monson, the basketball is really only a small part of it these days. He was 63 when Long Beach State fired him in 2024, and said he considered retiring before the Eastern Washington job opened up, with former Eagles coach David Riley having moved to nearby Washington State.

Monson's feet had been all over the area. Eastern Washington's campus in Cheney is just 16 miles from Spokane, where Monson had roots along with some in the Tri-Cities area of Central Washington. Monson attended the University of Idaho, about 90 minutes away, too.

As a coach, Monson jump-started the Gonzaga program into a powerhouse, taking the Zags to a breakthrough 1999 Elite Eight appearance in Phoenix. He left Gonzaga after that season to become the coach at Minnesota, while his assistant, Few, remained to take over Gonzaga — and honor Monson's promise to offer Lloyd a graduate assistant job.

Over a quarter-century later, Lloyd is coming off a Final Four appearance with Arizona and Monson is back home, surrounded by family. One of his sons is a senior guard for the Eagles, while another is an assistant coach and his youngest daughter is his director of basketball operations.

“I don’t think he felt great about how it ended at Long Beach State, not that any coach feels good about the ending, but he got back to his roots,” Lloyd said. “I'm sure there's been some hard days, but the joy of being able to be with your family and share your profession with your family and your kids is pretty special.”

So much so that Monson even gave up his Southern California residence for good.

He says how cool it is to see three of his four children, all in their 20s, on the job every day. He lives 200 yards away from Few, with the two families sharing dinners often on Sundays. He and his wife, Darci, now live near their parents, being around when their fathers passed away, and being there now for their widowed mothers.

It’s home. Eight seasons in Minnesota, then 17 at Long Beach State, but now, home.

“I don't think I really would have said three years ago that this was home,” Monson said. “I felt like Long Beach was home. We kept our house there for a year and rented it because we thought that was home, and we’d go back. And when we got here after a few months, we're like, ‘What? What are we doing?’

“I'm gladly sacrificing the weather and what I had down in California for the people that I have here. I can't believe I'm even saying that even to this day.”