Long Beach State Sports : Re: BeachFan 49

I was a student at LB St during the Dwight Jones years. He posted a 70-40 record in four years as the head coach at Long Beach State, where he assumed the reins in 1974 after working as an assistant coach with both Jerry Tarkanian and Lute Olson. In his four seasons at the helm, the 49ers tied for the PCAA championship twice and won outright in his first season, 1974-75.

His .636 winning percentage remains the third best in school history, and his 1976-77 team, anchored by Lloyd McMillian, reached the NCAA Tournament for the fifth time in school history. Jones was also part of the last staff to win an NCAA Tournament game at Long Beach State as an assistant during the 1972-73 season.

Jones left Long Beach State after the 1977-78 season, and took a position as the principal of Rivera Middle School in Pico Rivera. He finished his professional career at El Rancho Adult School, again serving as the school principal until his retirement. He passed away in 2013 at the age of 70.

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Beachfan Monson had to go. Monson spent 17 mostly mediocre seasons here at LB. He did get lucky last year and lost in the first round of the Tournament as usual.
I don’t know how long you have been a fan of the program. But LB State used to have a standard of excellence. I have been a fan since the mid 1970’s. Yes that was a long time ago. But I want to remind people of one LB coach who was fired the first time he did not win or tie for the PCAA Championship. That coach was Dwight Jones. He never had a losing season and LB had won 6or 7 consecutive championships. Tark never lost a home game. LB used to have high standards.
We will never have success like we had in the 70’s and 80’s. But we can do better than Monson.

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Boy did we start over. Medicore is better than pathic. I sure hope things get better in the future.

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BeachFan49. Can you give any of us 5 reasons why CDM should have been retained and not fired? 2 NCAA appearances in 17 years and lets be honest the 2nd one last year was luck. The team was average at best and they got hot after it was announced that CDM was being let go. The program was and is stale. The passionate fan base is drying up and losing interest. CDM is not doing anything different at Eastern Washington except losing at 1-8. I didn't expect this team to stink as much as it has but it was time to flush CDM down the toilet and start over.

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Not all of us wanted change. I wanted to keep Dan and I feared the exact scenario that is now playing out. There are no excuses to be had about this being a transition year, a whole new team, etc. That’s the nature of college basketball now. Just look at Cal Poly. They have a first year coach and are much better than us. Our program right now is a complete and utter disaster. Are you aware that by NET and KenPom we are like a bottom 10 or 20 team in the entire country? This is nothing short of a catastrophe. Meanwhile, Dan’s team has a poor record but looks much more competitive than us and they will at least be respectable in the Big Sky. Bobby is a grifter and has ruined this program!

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I hope that we have not lost sight of what we all wanted for most of the last 5 years, and what we all knew what could happen if we were to change coaches. We also all knew what the portal could potentially do to last years team, at the end of the season, and that came true plus some.

Now, we are where we are!!! Let's remember that at the end of last year we all wanted a change, and realized that it might take a new coach two or even three years to turn things around and rebuild our program. Well, here we are in that coaches 1st season wondering when the miracle is going to happen. There is a very good chance that it will not happen this year, but this is our team and our new coaching staff.

In my opinion, it is time to cut them some slack, get to know our new team, and enjoy the journey of watching them grow. That growth may not be as rapid as we would like it to be, but it is all a part of going down the path that all of us wanted to go.

I remain very hopeful that our new coaching staff is a good one, and that Bobby has made a very good choice for us! But I am not sure that I have ever seen a miracle, and doubt that we will see one this season! Let's support this staff and team and enjoy seeing the transformation of our men's basketball program!!!!

Hope to see many of my fellow fans at games this season and look forward to discussing our basketball ups and downs as we go through the season (both at games and on this message board)!