ESPN Men's Basketball

In March 1999, Don Monson was 37 years old and the hot young coach in the country. His Gonzaga team had become the darling of college basketball by taking the eventual national champion, UConn, to overtime in the Elite Eight. I remember it vividly because I sat 30 feet away from the Zags' bench while calling the game on radio for Westwood One.

Gonzaga was smart, tough, talented and well-coached. Monson had a great command of his huddles during timeouts and his team executed its offense well enough to drive Jim Calhoun nuts for 45 minutes. I know – I was 30 feet away from Calhoun's bench, too.

Four months later, Monson parlayed his team's great run into the head coaching job at the University of Minnesota. His clean-cut image, his family's coaching genealogy and Gonzaga's success were the perfect antidotes for the Gophers' scandal-ridden program, beset by academic fraud and illegal inducements during the Clem Haskins era.

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