There’S No Tunnel Vision As Gopher

You’re Dan Monson, your basketball team has - from your first day on the job - been chum in the shark tank of life and yet you’ve just beaten Bobby Knight.

Your next move - your duty - is clear.

Vegas, baby.

“I figured,” he admitted, “my luck can’t get any better than this.”

OK, so it was actually business. As the head coach of the University of Minnesota, Monson is very much obligated to woo the state’s best high school players, one of whom happens to be living with a brother in Gomorrah-by-the-Mojave this winter. So he was there to recruit, not risk the annuity at the roulette wheel - tempting as that may have been.

But he was right about the luck.

Back in Minneapolis on Tuesday, Monson tried to cope with the loss of starting guard John Blair Bickerstaff, the Gophers’ emotional fulcrum who fractured a kneecap in the 77-75 upset of 10th-ranked Indiana.

Later in the day, Monson announced he had - after repeated warnings - suspended 7-foot-1 sophomore center Joel Przybilla indefinitely for a lack of commitment to matters academic. As the speculation goes, Przybilla’s recent study habits pretty much end with a read at the morning’s NBA standings and a quick seminar on which teams might have lottery picks. That might not be idle fantasy, since he dropped a 33-spot on Hoosier Bob last week.

But one thing was certain: Dan Monson had drawn another line in the snow.

“There’s no question I’ve backed off this team more than I would normally,” he said. “But I feel good I haven’t compromised my values or what we’re trying to do.”

Which, no matter how it appears, is not to lead the Big Ten in self-abuse.

When he gets around to writing the autobiography, this will be Dan Monson’s most interesting chapter - a life-in-the-year tale that probably deserves a book of its own.

He is in his 30th week on the job at UM - still going through, as his wife Darci likes to joke, “Zag withdrawals” from his abrupt and agonizing departure from Gonzaga University last July. On his office wall is an action photograph of Gophers forward Dusty Rychart surrounded by four Bulldogs defenders - snapped at the NCAA Tournament game which birthed this bizarre saga, and representing both the tingle of an unknown future and the regret of abandoning a fully realized past.

Gonzaga’s wild NCAA ride, the whirlwind Minnesota courtship, the 600-guest wedding two weeks after he changed employers, the European tour with some very tall strangers in lieu of a honeymoon - all of that was just for starters. Soon came the fallout from the academic scandal that ousted coach Clem Haskins. The men who hired Monson were fired. Sanctions - most notably a ban from postseason play - were selfimposed, though the NCAA could levy more.

What else? A six-game winning streak to start the season. Later, six losses in seven games in the Big Ten. Knocking off Knight. Building a new house. Trying to find it (an inside joke GPS was invented for Dan Monson).

And then there’s this: Darci Monson is seven months pregnant.

“That’s the perspective meter,” he said, “no matter how overwhelming everything else seems.”

Coal is formed under less pressure and change than what Dan Monson has concocted for himself these past seven months.

His basketball team - even with Przybilla and Bickerstaff - is no world-beater, guard-poor, normally unable to win a half-court game, yet at 12-9 probably overachieving to a degree. Even after beating Indiana, the judgment is unqualified: he left behind a far better team than he inherited.

“We have a lot more limitations than the Gonzaga players did,” he acknowledged. “It’s not an effort thing. It’s an ability issue. I believed in those players at Gonzaga, and whenever things weren’t going well, I never blamed it on ability.

“This team is fragile, but we’ve persevered. I feel kind of like their stepdad. There’s no question Clem was their father figure. As a coach, so much of what you do is a read and a feel - and at Gonzaga, that feel came naturally.”

There was a feel to the days and the circumstances at GU that was natural, too. Now there’s an alien quality Monson is still trying to shed. Some of it is environment and, yes, some of it is a trapping of money - not just his $500,000 salary, but the embarrassment of resources at his disposal.

“It’s so different,” he said of his life. “It’s just so much more … public. The interest level for every game is just so high - and that’s why you take these jobs.”

And yet sometimes it’s ridiculous.

“Within two weeks after I got here, I had six or seven different clothing stores bidding for a clothing contract with me. I mean, have you ever seen me and how I dress? Deciding which clothes I was going to wear - I couldn’t believe it. My wife’s take was the best: `Isn’t it amazing, that when you have the money to buy nice clothes, they want to give them to you?’ ”

But there are special perks, too.

Before taking the job, Monson turned it down twice - unable to reconcile how far it would take him from Spokane and his tightly knit family. So the Gophers came up with a budget just for personal travel, and now there’s almost always a house guest from the West for home games.

Still, the withdrawal pains continue.

“I just bought a satellite dish and I’ve seen some Gonzaga games that way,” he said. “It’s funny, though - mostly I just stare at a computer and listen to Dennis Patchin on the Internet. It’s a weird feeling listening to something like that great Pepperdine win they had and knowing how special that locker room is, how close those players are. It doesn’t make it any easier, knowing they were going to have this type of year.”

It wasn’t easy, either, imagining how his jump to Minnesota would be perceived here. It may, in fact, have been Monson’s greatest apprehension.

“I wanted to prove to people I wasn’t one of those coaches out looking to climb the ladder,” he said. “I wanted to be the one making a statement that Gonzaga was my home. Ultimately, I wasn’t able to do that and come through - and I really felt like I let people down.

“I still feel that way to a certain degree, but the people at Gonzaga and in Spokane have been way more understanding than I ever could have imagined.”

And in Minneapolis? Well, on Tuesday, he gave his best player the boot after the biggest victory of the season.

Sometimes, you have to make them understand.