Doug Gottlieb’s a seasoned heel. He was a dependable ass on sports talk airwaves for years, then brought his ass act to the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay bench in 2024 when he got a coaching job—while still keeping his radio gig—and mentored his inaugural squad to a 4-28 record with an astounding 21-game losing streak.
But following a viral chair-toss episode after an early-season loss to Horizon League rival Robert Morris, Gottlieb made himself less interesting by giving up the shock-jock post and actually winning some games. His Phoenix took a 15-12 mark into Sunday's game with Milwaukee, a pretty good record at a school he himself would dub “Nobody U” if he wasn’t on the payroll.
Alas, Gottlieb put his ass hat back on and returned to the spotlight following his team’s 75-72 home loss. Gottlieb, whose team blew a six-point second-half lead, spent the postgame press conference profanely whining about officiating, conference leadership, and even schedulers. The peeved coach climaxed his tirade by attacking the table on the dais with the same venom he’d shown the chair in December. Why do you hate furniture, Doug?
The losing coach was primarily steamed by a series of calls in the second half. During the game's final sequence, he thought Phoenix guard Preston Ruedinger was fouled while getting stripped of the ball by Milwaukee’s Stevie Elam, while driving for what might have been a game-winning bucket. Instead, refs hit Green Bay with a foul call after Ruedinger’s turnover, and Elam hit the two free throws to close out the win.
Gottlieb, who’d been assessed with a technical foul earlier in the game, claimed the officials had blown the whistle on his guys under identical circumstances just before Elam’s momentous strip.
"You had the exact same play on both ends in the last play of the game,” Gottlieb ranted. “The exact same fucking play!”
Gottlieb's microphone fell during his rant while he bashed the table with a series of double karate chops, which where delivered in sync with his “exact (chops) same (chops) fucking (chops) play (chops)!” But the table survived without obvious damage, a testament to good engineering or poor martial arts skills.
Gottlieb demanded that Horizon League officials explain the officiating discrepancy on the two plays, and also clarify why he got a tech when, according to him, he never cursed or left the coaching box. And, apparently wanting to air all his beeves in one sitting, Gottlieb went after the conference leadership for making his team play a midweek game earlier in the season instead of more weekend dates where “generally you get better officiating.”
Gottlieb’s media career, which began at the beginning of the century at an Oklahoma station known as “The Sports Animal,” was highlighted by lowlights. In 2013, he said he was hired by CBS to bring “the white man’s perspective” to the network’s NCAA coverage. Last year, he said female officials in the WNBA and NBA were generally not up to the task. In 2022, he showed that even with this history of racist and misogynist commentary, his quiver still has room for incompetence by fucking up a report about Freddie Freeman’s agent, Casey Close. Gottlieb alleged Close had hidden contract information from Freeman during free agency negotiations that led to the star first basemen’s departure from the Atlanta Braves. Close sued for libel, but dropped the case after Gottlieb confessed his error and apologized.
Now miscreancy is getting him attention once more. Press conference madness could be on the uptick as March gets closer. Kansas State coach Jerome Tang ranted that his players “do not deserve to wear the uniform” at a presser following last week’s loss to Cincinnati, then took their names off their jerseys. K-State took Tang’s name off its payroll on Sunday. No word yet from the Horizon League or Green Bay on whether Gottlieb will be sanctioned for his decorum.
