A wild college basketball coaching hire was just announced earlier as the Green Bay Phoenix have hired college basketball radio host Doug Gottlieb. Yes, you did read that correctly.
Gottlieb is a former college basketball points guard who played professionally overseas for a few seasons before starting his career in media shortly after in 2002.
Most college basketball fans are familiar with Gottlieb as he does “The Doug Gottlieb Show” and is brought on as a basketball analyst by multiple networks during March Madness. Gottlieb doesn’t have much coaching on his resume, which makes this hire by Green Bay so surprising.
From Talk Show Host To Green Bay Head Coach
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Doug Gottlieb is one of the biggest personalities across college basketball. It’s very possible a lot of people don’t even know that he played basketball in college and at the professional level prior to becoming a talk show host and studio analyst.
Gottlieb’s show has been very popular with college basketball fans. Gottlieb also will touch on other leagues like the NBA and WNBA.
He is supposedly going to still be doing his show, even while coaching the Phoenix.
Gottlieb’s Previous Coaching Experience
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Doug Gottlieb has a very limited amount of coaching experience. I really had to do some digging on where his previous stops were and how the team faired.
In 2009, Gottlieb helped coach under current Auburn coach Bruce Pearl for the United States basketball team at the 2009 Maccabiah Games. The Maccabiah Games are an international Jewish and Israeli multi-sport event held in Israel. In 2017, Gotlieb was the head coach for Team USA in the Maccabiah games. He led Team USA to a gold medal.
This is the only notable coaching experience in Gottlieb’s career. Green Bay must have been impressed with his potential and the limited sample size in the Maccabiah games. Or, maybe Green Bay is also a big fan of “The Doug Gottlieb Show.”
Green Bay Phoenix Outlook
Green Bay is coming off a big bounce in the 2023-24 season. The Phoenix finished 18-14 and 3rd place in the Horizon League under first-year coach Sundance Wilks. This was off the heels of a disastrous 3-29 record in the 2022-23 season. This great coaching job got Wilks the job offer from Wyoming, which he just accepted a few days ago.
While the transfer portal is closed for most teams, there is a 30 day extension of the window given by the NCAA to teams with late coaching changes. We’ll see how many players on Green Bay decide to stick around with a new coach. I’d expect a lot of them to follow Wilks over to Wyoming.
On the flip side, what options does Gottlieb have with filling his roster out? There are are still some players in the portal that haven’t made final decision so he’s going to have to make a heck of a last second sales pitch. We all thought this chaotic coaching carousel was over, and boy were we wrong. The Green Bay Phoenix are going to be interesting to watch next year with Doug Gottlieb at the helm.
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About the Author
Cory is an Oregon Duck alumni and has been following college basketball closely for years. He attended over 30 games across the country this season alone.
Follow Cory on X @cory_pappas1 for more breaking stories to get you through the offseason.
