Report: Doug Gottlieb a serious candidate for Green Bay head coaching job

Former college basketball player and current Fox Sports analyst Doug Gottlieb is a candidate for the Green Bay Phoenix men’s hoops head coaching job, according to Jon Rothstein.

“Sources: Doug Gottlieb has emerged as a serious candidate for the head coaching vacancy at Green Bay,” Rothstein tweeted out Tuesday morning.

Gottlieb has never coached basketball at the college level in any capacity; however, he pined for the open Oklahoma State coaching job this offseason when the program fired Mike Boynton. He made the following pitch for himself as coach back in March during an interview with WWLS, an Oklahoma City radio station:

“You know I want that job. (I understand) what we have, what we need, what needs to be fixed, how to get the culture back in line, how to bring back the alumni, how we need to connect better with Stillwater and with the students and all of Oklahoma. I fully believe I can fill up the gym and I can get the NIL.”

Gottlieb knows he has practically zero track record as a coach, but still believed he would succeed at OSU:

“I understand anyone’s hesitance when you haven’t seen me draw up a play. I get it. It’s different. But if you want a different result, you have to try a different path. That’s life 101.”

Perhaps Green Bay will try that different path allowing Gottlieb to go from analyst to coach without having ever been on a college hoops sideline in a coaching capacity.

The coaching change for Green Bay is a tough one to swallow, after they finally seemed to find their footing in 2023-24 under head coach Sundance Wicks. Frankly, the Phoenix were one of the worst college basketball programs in the country in the years prior to Wicks’ arrival, finishing with records of 8-17, 5-25 and 3-29 in the 2021, 2022 and 2023 seasons.

Last offseason, Wicks was hired after several years as the top assistant at Wyoming under Jeff Linder. But following a few very successful seasons in 2021 and 2023, Wyoming struggled the last couple years and Linder decided to leave this offseason to take an assistant coaching job at Texas Tech.

So Wyoming decided to reach out to Wicks, who just led Green Bay to a 15-win improvement in 2023-24 with an 18-14 record compared to the three-win campaign the year prior. That’s a heck of a job for a first year head coach, and Wyoming was clearly impressed. His performance with the Phoenix, coupled with the experience at Wyoming, made him an obvious choice for the Cowboys’ job.

So now, Green Bay is left searching for their third head coach in three years.