Months after he tossed a chair after a loss, Green Bay coach Doug Gottlieb slammed both hands on a table at his postgame news conference and demanded answers after he was given a late technical foul and his team was called for a crucial foul in the closing seconds of a 75-72 loss at Milwaukee on Sunday.
“The last play of the game, just to get the ball, they’re grabbing us and holding us. Again, I understand if you’re not calling that — that’s fine,” Gottlieb said before he pounded on the table and bumped the microphone from its stand. “You had the exact same play on both ends in the last play of the game. The exact same f—ing play! The exact same play.”
With his team trailing by a point in the final seconds Sunday, Green Bay’s Preston Ruedinger drove to the basket, where Milwaukee’s Stevie Elam ripped the ball out of his hands. Elam was fouled and sank two free throws to extend his team’s lead and seal the win.
Gottlieb said a foul should’ve been called on that play, in part because Ruedinger was called for a foul on Milwaukee’s Amar Augillard with 24 seconds to play in what Gottlieb called “the same play.”
But that wasn’t his only gripe.
Gottlieb was assessed a technical foul with 6:58 to play after arguing with an official, with Green Bay holding a three-point lead. Gottlieb said he needs an explanation from new Horizon League commissioner Jill Bodensteiner, the former Saint Joseph’s athletic director who was appointed to the conference leadership post Thursday, because the tech was unwarranted.
“I need the new commissioner of the Horizon League to explain to me what a technical foul is when I don’t leave the box, I don’t curse, I’m not demonstrative,” he said. “There was nothing, nothing that should have been called a technical foul. I know when I earn one. I did not earn one.”
This wasn’t Gottlieb’s first outburst. The second-year coach, who also had a nationally syndicated radio show until he recently chose to focus on coaching full time, tossed a chair in his team’s tunnel after Green Bay squandered an 11-point lead in a home loss to Robert Morris in December.
But Green Bay has also become one of college basketball’s most surprising stories. Picked to finish last in the Horizon League’s preseason poll, the Phoenix will enter the week tied for third place in the conference’s standings with three games to go. Gottlieb has nearly quadrupled his team’s win total (15) from last season (4).
On Sunday, Gottlieb said he just wants officiating that’s consistent going forward.
“All we ask is that there is a fair game,” he said. “That’s what we ask.”
