Former UWGB coach Sundance Wicks explains leaving Green Bay

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – Sundance Wicks was in Orlando, Florida, when he got the call that would land him his dream job.

At a networking event in Orlando at the Head Coaching Training Center, Founder Brian D. Stanchak went on stage to talk to different coaches across the country about mid-major basketball.

One point Stanchak brought up to those in attendance, including Wicks, was the ‘Moneyball’ approach. This term refers to the Oakland Athletics’ approach and strategy of finding undervalued players through sabermetrics to build a winning team.

The same approach Sundance Wicks took with the Green Bay men’s basketball program in his one and only year with the Phoenix. Wicks created and led a team coming off of a program’s worst three wins to the 9th greatest turnaround in NCAA Division I history.

The definition of ‘mid-major Moneyball.’

“During the day down there, I started seeing all of these search firms go up there. All of these head coaches, assistant coaches who want to get in that seat, they’re asking all of these hard-ball questions to the search firm and how you got to get there”, Wicks said.

Sundance took to the stage and explained his basketball journey.

Wicks talked about being the youngest assistant coach in the Big 12 at the University of Colorado at 24 years old, fired by age 29 at Northern Illinois, running an AAU program, working with his younger brother on the same coaching staff, being a part of a national championship game at his alma mater at Northern State, heading to Missouri Western as a head coach, leaving to take an assistant job at Wyoming under, then, head coach Jeff Linder, which led to his opportunity to the Phoenix this past season.

“[Linder] helped seal the deal for us at Green Bay by calling the chancellor, who he had a relationship with at Northern Colorado. I’m forever thankful for Coach Linder. It’s a servant mentality. He wants his guys to be head coaches, and he afforded me that chance”, heir apparent Wicks said, reflecting on former Wyoming head coach Jeff Linder. “Now I’m sitting here telling all of this to a bunch of people at the ‘Head Coach Training’ seminar about Green Bay and how we got there. They’re probably looking at me like, ‘Yup. You’re right. This stuff is kind of crazy, man.”

Then Wicks’ phone rang. It was Tom Burman, Wyoming’s Athletic Director.

Linder was leaving the Cowboys’ head coaching position to take an assistant coaching position at Texas Tech, and Burman wanted Wicks to be the next leader at Wyoming.

“It was extremely hard to leave that opportunity when I got that call in Orlando from Tom. It was like, ‘There’s some stuff we got to go through here to get this done,’ and it was probably the most seamless and easiest process I’ve ever been a part of as far as transitioning jobs and having that opportunity come across your desk”, Wicks said.

The deal was done. In a matter of days, Wicks, a native of Wyoming, was leaving Green Bay to go home for his dream job, which he explained happened 25 years ago.

After illustrating one of the greatest turnarounds in NCAA DI basketball history in Green Bay, Wicks signed a five-year contract with Wyoming to become the Cowboy’s next head coach.

Green Bay signed Wicks to a contract extension just weeks before his departure. The new contract would have made Sundance the highest-paid coach in university history, increasing from $300,000 in year one to as high as $400,000 in his final year with the Phoenix.

That contract extension between Wicks and Green Bay, obviously, never came to life, but it did present a hefty buyout upwards of $700,000 that Green Bay would receive. It’s unconfirmed if the Phoenix received all of the funds from the buyout, but they will be getting financial compensation from Wicks’ departure.

Despite the Phoenix rewarding Wicks for leading a historic turnaround, Green Bay couldn’t compete with Wyoming and what they could offer. According to WYOSports.net, Wicks’ contract with the Cowboys includes a massive pay increase:

• 2024-25: $650,000
• ’25-’26: $850,000
• ’26-’27: $875,000
• ’27-’28: $925,000
• ’28-’29: $950,000

Right before news broke of Sundance Wicks officially leaving Green Bay, Phoenix players received a call from their former head coach. One player told Local 5’s Kyle Malzhan that it was “very respectful and done how it should’ve been done.”

“You can’t be blinded by anything in division I athletics right now. It’s chaos.”, Green Bay Athletic Director Josh Moon said. “Was I blindsided? The timing’s not ideal, but as that went down there – Sundance Wicks should be Wyoming’s top target. We did our job protecting ourselves with the buyout and making sure there’s a commitment here that we’re going to be in a better position from that buyout than we weren’t, maybe, three years ago. That was really important for us. Not budging on that piece.”

“It was hard. We built a really good relationship with Sunny and we kind of thought we were past him leaving. But it’s business, and we respect everything Sunny did for us and did for this university. We’re just trying to take it off from there,” Lourdes Academy grad and current Phoenix Preston Ruedinger told Local 5.

“Extremely grateful. Gratitude is something that’s been on my mind lately. Extremely grateful for the University of Wisconsin Green Bay and Director of Athletics Josh Moon. I mean, he gave me my shot, man. You pray for those opportunities, but God never rewards you in the way you think he’s going to reward you. [God] says, ‘You want an opportunity? Let’s go 362 out of 362 (Green Bay’s KenPom’s pre-season rankings for the 2023-24 season) and see what you can do, big boy. You have to be kind of crazy in this profession, and then you have to take some risks and leaps” Wicks reflected. “Everybody talks about betting on themselves, and I get that mantra, that statement, but at the end of the day, it’s not so much betting on yourself as it is believing in your processes and getting the right people around you to do the right things. That’s what I think we were able to accomplish at Green Bay, which probably afforded us this situation here.”

Now, the Green Bay men will turn the page to their new head coach, Doug Gottlieb. The longtime sports radio analyst and host certainly has a lot on his plate as he takes over the program in mid-May.

Since Wicks’ departure, the Phoenix have lost the Horizon League Freshman of the Year David Douglas Jr., Amari Jedkins, and Neenah’s Chevalier Emery Jr. to the transfer portal. Assistant head coaches Pat Monaghan and Nic Reynolds left Green Bay to follow Wicks to Wyoming along with incoming transfers Cole Henry and Scottie Ebube.

Gottlieb is keeping Kaukauna’s Jordan McCabe on the coaching staff, and he was able to retain Ruedinger, Foster Wonders, Marcus Hall, Mac Wrecke, and Bennett Basich for the upcoming basketball season. Right now, eight scholarships are available for Gottlieb to work with and help rebuild the Green Bay roster.

As one chapter closes, another one has opened up for the Green Bay men’s basketball program.

Like Wicks explained about his recruiting approach, now, at Wyoming: “This is the real world, man. People leave for better jobs all the time. People leave for other jobs that maybe aren’t better, but it’s a better move for their family. They do these things and this is reality. We all want it to be what it was, but it’s not and it’s okay. We have to embrace change.”

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