8:50am | Long Beach State men’s basketball coach Dan Monson looked excited as he mingled and shmoozed with supporters and fans last night at the Beach Club, where he and women’s coach Jody Wynn delivered updates on their teams and talked about the season ahead. The public meeting was one of four weekly receptions that the coaches will hold at local restaurants to drum up excitement for the season ahead, a tradition that the Athletic Department began a few years ago and has quickly grown into an event that can easily pack the place.

Monson said everything that the crowd wanted to hear; that the time to win is now, that he’s guardedly optimistic, that “It’s time to finish first.” He says that the four juniors that have been the backbone of his team learned a lot in their first two seasons, and are ready to assume leadership roles. Forward T.J. Robinson in particular, Monson says, is in the best shape of his life and Monson can’t hold back a smile when he reveals that Robinson “actually hit a 15-footer today in practice.”

But most of all, Monson looks at home, among friends in this setting. Far removed from his last coaching job at Minnesota, where Monson has said that he was never comfortable, the coach and his family love their current situation and that made it all the easier to extend his contract through the 2015-16 season.

The odd thing about the deal was not that Monson, who has gone 38-56 in three seasons here but nearly won the Big West Conference twice, would receive an extension. The odd thing is that he’d basically scrap his original deal and sign an entirely new one, even though there were still three seasons left on the first contract. It certainly couldn’t be a money issue – although terms of the new deal were not disclosed, Monson surely made considerably more at Minnesota and state records show that last year he earned just over $148,000.

This deal, Monson says, was about being where he wants to be. At the end of last season, there were rumblings across the nation that there may be jobs opening up with Monson’s name on them. Perhaps that hit a little too close to home, when Monson left a job he loved in Gonzaga for a job that everyone told him to take in Minnesota. Maybe he felt he had unfinished business in building this program. Whatever the case, Monson knew that he didn’t want to leave and those rumors ended up being a blessing in disguise. They brought he and Athletic Director Vic Cegles to the table in May, eager to make a long-term commitment that was finalized this week.

The coach loves it here, his family loves it here, and he joked to the crowd that he asked Athletic Director Vic Cegles for a lifetime contract. “He told me, ‘Dan, I work out with you every morning and I’m older than you. I’ve seen you eat, I’ve seen you drink. Let’s make it six years and that’ll be close enough,'” Monson joked. That certainly sounds like something that Cegles would say, though the AD probably gave the idea some thought. His priority is continuity, which he says is vital to an emerging program like Long Beach State’s. The goal is to get to the point that they’ll have to build seating expansions in the Pyramid, he says, and Cegles believes he’s got the right man for the job.

“I just thought we were going in such a positive direction that we needed to make a statement to the community and recruits,” Cegles said, noting that his vision is to build the program into a Gonzaga-style mid-major powerhouse, and that scheduling tough opponents is far more important than earning cheap victories.

“We could’ve had four patsies on the schedule last year and finished 21-12, but both [Monson] and I agreed in the fact that it didn’t matter.”

They’ve obviously carried that philosophy into this season, as the 49ers will again face off against Clemson, two PAC-10 teams, a perennial mid-major winner in St. Mary’s, and visit the second most winningest program in NCAA basketball history when they travel to Chapel Hill to play North Carolina.

“You don’t know if you can beat them unless you try,” Monson told the crowd. “I’m ready to see if these kids are up to the challenge.”

Long Beach State fans are thinking the same thing about their coach. Can the 49ers eventually become a Gonzaga? Can they sell out road games and consistently beat power conference teams? Can Monson bring them to the promised land?

With his future securely planted in Long Beach, and finally comfortable in his surroundings, let’s see if he’s up to the challenge.