Once a talking head, always a talking head.
Doug Gottlieb left behind his Fox Sports Radio job last year to focus on coaching the Green Bay Phoenix, but he still hasn’t gotten rid of the urge to get off a good take.
In a press conference on Tuesday coming off back-to-back losses to Horizon League foes, Gottlieb went on a long rant against the industry-standard KenPom ratings for college basketball. The second-year head coach defended his program’s resume for the NCAA Tournament and accused other mid-major conferences like the MAC of “buying wins” and bolstering their bona fides by narrowly losing to superior teams.
“KenPom is bullsh*t,” Gottlieb said.
“Because it takes into account how much you lose by. And it has no context for who you have, who the other team has. So in our league, OK, KenPom gives you benefits because Oakland plays like seven buy games. And so if you get close in those buy games and those teams you play in a buy game have great years, your numbers go up. So we get dinged.”
“KenPom is bull***t”
Sit back an enjoy this four minute dialogue from Doug Gottlieb on the KenPom rankings. Insightful thoughts.@fox11news @TheFieldOf68 pic.twitter.com/mtJTpfRttW
— Michael Gross (@MichaelSGross) February 3, 2026
“Buy games” are matchups in which smaller programs, often mid-majors, travel to play Power 4 teams. The smaller programs are paid up to six-figure sums to fill out top teams’ non-conference schedules.
While the Power 4 programs benefit by getting a supposedly easy win, Gottlieb argued that ratings systems like KenPom (and the Kevin Pauga Index) overvalue teams that lose these buy games by smaller margins.
Gottlieb added that his Green Bay squad, at 12-12, is just as good as any mid-major team in the country — including the 23rd-ranked Miami Ohio RedHawks.
“I would challenge that if our league gets a 14 or a 15 (seed), or if we win in it, we’re going to get a 16 (seed) and we’ll be in Dayton, that’s fine. We’re way better than the other 16-seeds,” he said. “Everybody knows it. Because this league, everybody has some money. Whereas in some leagues, nobody has any money.”
Gottlieb continued by explaining that most mid-major teams schedule these buy games (or “guarantee games”) simply as a means of funding their programs. The Horizon League is proven enough to commonly schedule these matchups, meaning they have more revenue coming in.
Yet when the results of these games get funneled into ratings systems, they are overvalued:
“I understand anybody who defends KenPom like ‘it’s just numbers,’ it’s not about Ken Pomeroy … but understand that they lack context. So I think that our league, in all honesty, is right up there with the MAC.”
But given that Gottlieb began his rant by telling the assembled reporters that he was about to deliver a viral soundbite, it’s fair to wonder whether he believes his argument will hold weight come March, or whether he merely felt moved to break it all down like the good old days on-air.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.