The Doug Gottlieb Experiment At Green Bay Has Already Hit Rock Bottom

Wisconsin-Green Bay took a big gamble when they hired longtime sports broadcaster Doug Gottlieb, who had never coached at the college level in any capacity, as their head coach. 

So far, the lack of experience is proving to be a big problem. The Phoenix won two of their first five games this season, one over Western Illinois and the other over SIU Edwardsville. Not exactly massive victories, but victories nonetheless. 

Since beating SIUE on November 19, Green Bay, led by Gottlieb, hasn’t won a single game. They entered Wednesday on a seven-game losing streak. But, that seemed likely to end since the Phoenix welcomed Division II Michigan Tech to their home gym on Wednesday afternoon. 

Alas, Green Bay couldn’t manage to defeat Michigan Tech, losing 72-70. That means the team will go at least an entire month without a win. Oh, yeah, and Gottlieb called Michigan Tech “Nobody U” before losing to them. 

Perhaps more humorous is that Gottlieb was sending out social media posts prior to the game that had nothing to do with his own basketball team. 

Posts that had nothing to do with college basketball this season, either. No, Gottlieb commented on a play from over ten years ago. 

Predictably, people crushed Gottlieb for choosing to spend his time on X rather than preparing his team to beat a Division II team at home. 

Social media hasn’t been Gottlieb’s friend this week. He was also torched by ESPN NFL reporter Adam Schefter on Tuesday. 

Look, it’s generally unfair to judge a college coach based on his first season. After all, Gottlieb hasn’t had a chance to do a ton of recruiting yet. 

However, in today’s modern age with the transfer portal, it’s easier to build a team in college quickly. Gottlieb doesn’t appear to have gotten that memo, though. 

While Green Bay had a terrible stretch from 2020-2023 under Will Ryan (they won 16 games across three seasons), the Phoenix were actually good last year. 

Green Bay won 18 games in 2023-24, their most since 2018-19. Sundance Wicks used his one successful season at Green Bay, in which he won the Horizon League Coach of the Year Award, to take the head coaching job at Wyoming, where he had previously been an assistant. 

That left the school with an opening, and they hired Gottlieb to take over a program seemingly on the rise. 

Doug Gottlieb is struggling in his first season at Wisconsin-Green Bay, and they just lost to Division II Michigan Tech.

(Eric Canha/Imagn Images)

Unfortunately, that upward ascent has ended. Green Bay entered Wednesday as the 320th ranked team in the nation according to Ken Pom (out of 364 Division I schools). They figure to fall further after Wednesday’s disaster.

So, what’s next? Luckily for Gottlieb, expectations aren’t all that high at Green Bay. They’ve only reached the NCAA Tournament once this millennium. 

They kept Will Ryan after a 5-25 season and only fired him after he started the ensuing season 2-19. Gottlieb’s job is probably safe for at least this season. 

All that being said, there might be something to that whole “experience thing” when it comes to coaching. Even though Gottlieb believes actual coaching experience at the college level is overrated. 

“Look, there’s the ego part to it that I want to prove myself,” Gottlieb said shortly after taking the job. “I want to prove that all the talking into a headset, all the AAU coaching and overseas coaching is legit.”

Maybe that experience wasn’t quite as “legit” as he’d hoped.