Green Bay coach Doug Gottlieb tosses chair in frustration after 'embarrassing' loss to Robert Morris
The Phoenix led by 11 with under four minutes to play before collapsing at home in a gutting loss
By
Kyle Boone
•
1 min read
Green Bay coach Doug Gottlieb flung a chair as he walked off the court Thursday night in a stunning 80-78 home loss to Robert Morris that saw his team surrender a double-digit lead with under four minutes to play.
Gottlieb's chair toss was hardly as impressive or as violent as the infamous Bob Knight seat fling vs. Purdue in 1985 -- Knight was tossed from the game because it was launched in the vicinity of an official and made contact with people on the baseline -- but it was impressive nonetheless as cameras caught the wheels of the upended chair flying into a vacant corner as he stormed into the locker room area just after time expired.
"That was just embarrassing how we lost the game," Gottlieb, who did not acknowledge the incident postgame, said of the two-point loss.
Green Bay took a 73-62 lead with 3:54 remaining in the second half after guard Preston Ruedinger drilled a pair of free throws to seemingly ice the game. That's when things went sideways for the Phoenix.
Robert Morris then staged a furious 18-5 rally prompted by a DeSean Goode layup with 3:43 remaining. Nikolaos Chitikoudis capped the comeback with a go-ahead layup with under five seconds remaining, and Green Bay's last-second look from 3-point range was no good.
The loss knocked Green Bay to 4-6 on the season with four of its losses -- to Buffalo, Minnesota, Yale and now Robert Morris -- coming by seven or fewer points.
"We're actually a good basketball team. We're actually pretty good," Gottlieb said after the game. "But we played like idiots at the end of the game."
If there's a bright side for Green Bay -- and, admittedly, it's hard to find one after such a disastrous finish -- the season has largely been better in comparison to last year. Gottlieb went 4-28 in his first season in 2024-25 marked by a 21-game in-season losing streak. They've already met the same win total as last season with more than two months remaining, and KenPom.com projects it to finish just below .500 in league play.
