The Doug Gottlieb experiment in Green Bay has already hit rock bottom

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

So far, the lack of experience has proven to be a major problem. Phoenix won two of their first five games this seasonone over Western Illinois and the other over SIU Edwardsville. Not exactly massive wins, but wins nonetheless.

Since beating SIUE on Nov. 19, Green Bay, led by Gottlieb, has not won a single game. They entered Wednesday on a seven-game losing streak. But that seemed to end as Phoenix welcomed Division II Michigan Tech to its home gym Wednesday afternoon.

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

Perhaps more humorously, before the game, Gottlieb posted on social media that had nothing to do with his own basketball team.

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

Predictably, people blasted Gottlieb for choosing to spend his time at X instead of preparing his team to beat a Division II team at home.

Social media has not been Gottlieb’s friend this week. He was also grilled 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 recruit a ton yet.

But in today’s modern age of the transfer portal, it’s easier to build a team in college quickly. Gottlieb doesn’t seem 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), Phoenix was actually good last year.

Green Bay won 18 games in 2023-24, their most since 2018-19. Sundance Wicks used his one successful season in Green Bay, where 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 that was 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 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 expect to fall further after Wednesday’s disaster.

So what’s next? Fortunately for Gottlieb, expectations aren’t as high in Green Bay. They have only reached the NCAA Tournament once this millennium.

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

That being said, maybe there is something to the whole “experience” when it comes to coaching. Although Gottlieb believes actual coaching experience at the college level is overrated.

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

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