ASHWAUBENON – If this isn’t rock bottom for the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay men’s basketball team, then it’s a bit frightening to imagine what that might look like the next few months.
UWGB dropped its eighth straight game Wednesday in a 72-70 loss to Michigan Tech at the Resch Center.
A Michigan Tech team that competes in NCAA Division II. A Michigan Tech team that can’t even count it as a win but simply a thrilling exhibition performance.
No doubt, the Huskies are a good DII team and entered winning seven of their first 10 contests. But these are not the games a DI squad looking for any sort of confidence boost can afford to lose.
UWGB was without star guard Anthony Roy and will be for the foreseeable future after he sustained a lower body injury in a game against UC-Santa Barbara on Saturday.
They lost another starting guard, Preston Ruedinger, to a head injury in the second half against Michigan Tech.
It didn’t help that 7-foot-1 center Isaiah Miranda lost complete composure at one point and was hit with a technical.
The Phoenix still needed to find a way to win and didn’t, despite being up by as many as 13 points with 16 minutes, 49 seconds remaining.
Being competitive early, only to fall apart in the second half, has been a trend this season.
Perhaps even worse is that the Huskies player who sealed the win at the free throw line was former Ashwaubenon star Marcus Tomashek, who never did get much love from former Phoenix coaches when he was in high school.
He scored a game-high 30 points in this one, and he’d have been lying if he didn’t admit it felt good.
“It was great,” Tomashek said. “Coming in here and beating a DI, we all knew we could beat them. Such a fun game. That’s why we play basketball.”
So, is this rock bottom for UWGB?
First-year coach Doug Gottlieb paused a few seconds before answering.
“I would hope,” he said. “The first thing is, Michigan Tech is a good basketball team. Marcus Tomashek is a hell of a player. Like, we are playing Drake next. They have four kids who transferred up from DII. They are good.
“I understand how it looks. It’s Michigan Tech, it’s a school from the U.P. that no one has ever heard of. A great engineering school. I understand. We knew they were a really good basketball team, and we are not good enough to have a 10-point lead, have some empty possessions and give up naked 3s.”
UWGB staggers into that game against Drake on Saturday with a 2-11 record and riding an eight-game losing streak. It has gone about a month without a win after beating SIU-Edwardsville on Nov. 19.
Gottlieb has faced several disadvantages in his first season. He didn’t take over until the middle of May, well after much of the top talent in the transfer portal was gone.
He had to assemble an entire coaching staff and almost a whole new team within a few months. As much knowledge as he has about the game, both from growing up in a family with a father as a coach and playing at a Power Five school, there still likely is a learning curve for a man coaching DI for the first time.
Patience is required, but it’s reasonable to think Phoenix fans were hoping for a better start. Or at least one that gave a glimmer of hope for better days right around the corner.
“Obviously, we are disappointed with where we are at right now,” UWGB athletic director Josh Moon said. “It’s been a lot of learning from everybody. Doug learning. Roster transition when he got the job. I think it was one of the latest jobs in the country, and how to fill that roster at that point in time.
“We are a team with a lot of youth, and what does it take to be successful in this league? I think all of that is what Doug is trying to figure out right now. People still have PTSD from a couple years ago (after a 3-29 season). We know that’s real. I get it. But this program, it is going to be done the right way, and we are going to build this thing so it’s sustainable. … The season is not over. There is a lot of basketball ahead.”
Moon expressed confidence in Gottlieb, the staff and the players. He “100 percent” has Gottlieb’s back.
Doug Gottlieb continues to juggle dual roles
As many already know, Gottlieb isn’t just a basketball coach. He also has a national radio show that pays the bills even better than his coaching gig.
There are going to be times when his mouth or social media presence will attract attention, both good and bad.
Sometimes, it’s not even his fault.
Social media buzzed Wednesday after the loss to Tech, showing a recent clip of Gottlieb talking about why teams schedule a couple of DII programs early in the season rather than build a more difficult schedule the way UWGB did.
“I don’t really like the idea of Nobody U coming in here,” he said at the time. “I always thought, ‘What do we learn playing a game we won by 20?’ But there is methodology to it. I’m going to have to adjust moving forward with the schedule.”
People who mocked Gottlieb after the loss against the Huskies took the clip wildly out of context, implying he was talking about the upcoming game against Michigan Tech.
He wasn’t. At all. He even made a point that every game on the schedule this season is a game they can lose. He instead was talking about the broader strategy by some teams to schedule not just lower division opponents, but such bad ones that a DI squad has almost zero chance to lose against.
That doesn’t mean he hasn’t at times created an unnecessary distraction.
He engaged in a brief spat with ESPN’s Adam Schefter this week, one which he started.
Schefter had posted that Sacramento State had over $50 million in their NIL collective.
Gottlieb called him out, telling him to edit what agents tell him and that there is zero chance Sacramento State has that much in NIL.
Most everyone would agree Gottlieb is correct, but the tone of his message was a bit harsh and caused Schefter to fire back a reply.
The reply showed the Horizon League standings and pointed out UWGB had lost seven straight. Schefter told him to spend less time on social media and more time in the gym.
Gottlieb admits his post was probably not necessary and that the tone indeed was off. He thought Schefter’s comeback tone was even more off.
“Part of the energy towards Schefty was this, when people put out that a program has $50 million NIL, it makes programs at this level, which is the same level basketball-wise, look like, ‘What are we doing?’” Gottlieb said. “We are nowhere near that, neither are they. My brother coached at Sacramento State, so there is no one who is more familiar with the Cal State system, Sacramento State, then I am outside of my brother.
“There is just so much BS out there about what is happening in the NIL world, and here we are asking our donors to help us in any way possible financially. How does that make them feel? Like, we are nickel and diming, when the reality is, they are nowhere near that.”
Gottlieb said he texted Schefter and Schefter texted back. He said the two are good now.
But what about that remark, about how he should spend more time in the gym than on social media?
With Gottlieb having such a large profile, there always was going to come a point when people would start questioning his commitment to UWGB if it started off poorly.
That time apparently has come.
It might not be a great look to be the leader of a 2-11 team and have people wonder if the coach is putting in the same attention to detail as his counterparts when he has such a significant commitment to another job.
“That’s my boss there, if he thinks I’m not working hard he will have a talk with me,” Gottlieb said, looking over at Moon.
He continued a few moments later.
“To people who say I’m torn, I’m split, just hang out with me for a day,” Gottlieb said. “I’m as dedicated to this job as any human being has ever been, and I’m going to see it through until we win a Horizon League championship. This is my dream job, and I will not fall short of the 100 percent effort that is required.
“Just so people understand, I watch tape constantly. I’m coaching these kids constantly. But here is something that people who have never coached before don’t understand: You can overcoach them. You can overwork them. You can overprepare for things. You can underprepare, you can under coach them. There is kind of a magic mix there, and when you’ve lost seven games in a row and you are coming into a game, the No. 1 thing you have to get them to do is believe in themselves. … We will get there.”
Gottlieb did say he feel he owed Moon an apology for bringing any negative attention to the basketball program, although Moon didn’t seek one.
He has talked sports for a long time. He speaks his mind. It’s not going to change.
Moon doesn’t have a problem with it.
“No question on that,” Moon said. “There are 24 hours in a day. He’s spending 2½, 3 of those 24 hours on the media side. He has got that business built for what that takes.
“It’s not because of a lack of work here and all the details. I’ve never been worried about that and like he said, can he handle himself and communicate better on social media? Absolutely. It’s a free country and he can say what he wants, but he has to understand the impact and how that flows with every retweet or tweet. But in terms of having another job, I have no concerns on that.”
