NCAA Basketball: Doug Gottlieb named Green Bay men's basketball coach
The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay has hired former Notre Dame/Oklahoma State star and Fox Sports radio host as its next men’s basketball coach, announced Tuesday afternoon by athletic director Josh Moon.
Gottlieb replaces Sundance Wicks, who left for Wyoming after former Cowboy head coach Jeff Linder left to become an assistant coach at Texas Tech under Grant McCasland.
In a short one-year span, Wicks engineered one of the more impressive turnarounds in college basketball last season, improving Green Bay’s win total from three in 2022-23 to 18 in his lone season leading the Phoenix in 2023-24.
As the Phoenix now turn to Gottlieb, a prominent -- although controversial -- media personality who hosts The Doug Gottlieb Show, he comes to Titletown with minimal head coaching experience but has long expressed his desire to start his collegiate coaching career.
According to Matt Norlander of CBS Sports, Gottlieb interviewed for the Oklahoma State opening in 2017 and also interviewed for the Green Bay opening in 2023, where he was one of the five finalists for the opening, according to the Green Bay-Press Gazette.
Gottlieb, a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, does have Wisconsin ties, too, where his father, Bob Gottlieb, coached the Milwaukee Panthers from 1975 to 980.
A standout traditional point guard in his playing days, Gottlieb started his playing career at Notre Dame before transferring to Golden West College after an incident in which he stole a classmate's credit card and used the card for purchases.
Given a second chance, Gottlieb committed to Hall of Fame coach Eddie Sutton at Oklahoma State, where he would twice lead the nation in assists, placing him 11th all-time in total assists at 947.
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Gottlieb will continue to host his daily radio show as part of his terms of employment at Fox Sports and is tasked with retooling a roster that has nine scholarship players as of May 14. The next goal is to maintain the roster, with players now having 30 days to enter the transfer portal.