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Gottlieb Announces Candidacy At OSU, Holder Says ‘We’ll Talk To Him’

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On a day of shockers, this should come as the least-surprising thing: Doug Gottlieb wants the Oklahoma State men’s basketball job. He told this to the Tulsa World. He told me as well (not that he needed to).

It’s game on again in Stillwater for No. 44.

Gottlieb also told the Tulsa World he couldn’t believe Underwood’s move.

“You’re telling everyone it’s your dream job and you’re never going to leave, and then you’re gone 12 months later?” Gottlieb told the Tulsa World. “That’s stunning. I’m stunned. … I thought he did an amazing job in turning around the momentum of the program.”

He did, for sure. Underwood went 20-13 in Year 1 and 9-9 in the Big 12. Could Gottlieb improve on that? He’s already tweeting about what he would do to keep building.

Last year after not getting the nod, Gottlieb made no bones about how upset he was.

“Well, obviously, I’m disappointed,” Gottlieb told the O’Colly. “I think I’d be lying if I used any other word. Not just because of the vision I had, but because it was one that was shared by so many who played there and coached there and cheered there.

“I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m bummed. Totally bummed because we would’ve done something really, really special, and hopefully, Brad does, as well. We would’ve done something special. We would’ve done something cool. It would’ve been fun. It would’ve been something that people wanted to be a part of.”

Might this time be different? Oklahoma State athletic director Mike Holder, who gave him a shot last time, said he would do so again.

I wrote about why Doug would work 12 months ago. I feel no different now. We even talked to him about it on our podcast a few times.

You guys already know I’m going to be a proponent of this so if you need to /unfollow right now then I won’t be offended. The push is real, though, and it might be “absolutely perfect timing” like Underwood said.

The problem, if you’re OSU, is that now you have a program that hasn’t been very good in over a decade (one NCAA Tournament win since 2005) and an AD that, real or not, is now perceived as being somebody you don’t necessarily want to work for in college basketball circles. Is that fair? Maybe not, but don’t think other coaches didn’t notice how this Underwood thing went down.

Is anybody going to be jumping for a chance to coach a recently-below average team that suddenly has a reputation for underpaying its guys? Yikes.

In a lot of ways, this would be the prefect scenario for Holder to save what is turning out to be a bad situation. He can tout Doug as “somebody who would never leave Stillwater” and keep the momentum Underwood started going into the future.

Let me put it this way, Gottlieb is the only person you could hire about whom the fan base would actually believe he would never leave. We just hired the Middle Tennessee State coach and he’s a Big 8 guy through and through. He’s a distant relative of John Smith! He’ll be here forever and ever.

Nobody’s buying that anymore.

And Holder knows stuff like this matters when it comes to attendance and maintaining momentum. Will it happen? Will he actually do it? I think Gottlieb is the favorite right now given the circumstances, but it may not stay that way for long.

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