Doug Gottlieb, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay men's basketball head coach Syndication: Green Bay Press-Gazette
By Matt Yoder on

Not too many Division I basketball coaches have had a worse week than Wisconsin-Green Bay head coach and Fox Sports radio host Doug Gottlieb.

Gottlieb has had the unfortunate distinction of getting embarrassed both on and off the court. First, there was his viral run-in on X with ESPN’s Adam Schefter, where Schefter ended an NIL debate by pointing out Gottlieb’s less-than-stellar record as a head coach.

Then on Wednesday, Gottlieb was embarrassed on the floor when his Phoenix lost their eighth consecutive game to Division II school Michigan Tech, a team that the coach had called “Nobody U” during a pregame press conference. Gottlieb’s team now sits at 2-11 on the season.

After all of this mayhem, Gottlieb did what else? He talked to the media about it.

Gottlieb spoke to Michael McCarthy at Front Office Sports and said that he wasn’t running away from his Fox Sports radio show as some had postulated, but the early time of the game prevented him from his regular hosting duties. But he also admitted that he understood the tidal wave of criticism coming his way and that the only way to really do anything about it is by winning more games.

“No, I’m not running from doing my radio show. I had a game at 11. The games are two hours long. I start taping my pod at 1 every day. Live at 2. There was no time to do it,” Gottlieb told FOS Wednesday night.

Despite the tight timeline, Gottlieb said he wanted to do Wednesday’s show. But two or three weeks ago, Fox Sports Radio senior vice president Scott Shapiro decided there wasn’t enough time to do both. Gottlieb said he’ll skip his son’s out-of-state game Thursday in order to host his program. 

“I completely understand that when you’re a public figure, and a sports radio host, and you said or tweeted things that people get mad about, that when you become a coach, and you start losing games, everybody wants to have their turn,” he says. “I get it. Understood.”

[…]

“It’s all different if you win games. So I have to get better. The team has to get better. We have to do the best we can.”

Certainly, Gottlieb has done himself no favors in his quest to become the first ever national radio host/D-I college basketball coach. His X war of words with Schefter was a weird battle to pick and with Wisconsin-Green Bay’s record what it is so far under his watch, he’s open to pretty much every single “scoreboard” comeback in the books.

His later comments calling Michigan Tech “Nobody U” and assuming his team would win in a cakewalk against a D-II school also backfired spectacularly. Most people would take the hint to put their head down and focus on the task at hand while not getting distracted by so many things going on in the media. That’s difficult to do when you host a national radio show. But Doug Gottlieb has to understand that the unforced errors are building just as quickly as the losses and both need to come to an end quickly if he has any hope of keeping at least one of his jobs.

[Front Office Sports]

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