photo by: AP Photo/Mitch Alcala, File

FILE - Oklahoma State alumnus Doug Gottlieb is acknowledged during the second half of the NCAA college basketball game against Oklahoma in Stillwater, Okla., Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023. The longtime basketball radio analyst will make his college head coaching debut next season at Green Bay, the school announced Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Gottlieb will take over for Sundance Wicks, who left the Phoenix after one year to take over Wyoming’s program.

The Kansas men’s basketball team will play an early-season game at Allen Fieldhouse against the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, according to the Phoenix’s head coach.

That wouldn’t be attention-grabbing news under normal circumstances — KU hosts all sorts of mid-majors for so-called “buy games” in the months of November and December — if not for the fact that Green Bay is one of the nation’s most scrutinized mid-major programs due to its unusual coaching setup.

Its head coach is longtime broadcaster Doug Gottlieb, who was hired by the Phoenix last season as a first-time head coach and went 4-28 while, in a unique arrangement, continuing to host his national daily radio show on Fox Sports.

Gottlieb revealed the news that Green Bay will open its season at KU on Nov. 3 as part of a fundraiser at Lambeau Field on Tuesday night.

“I guess I’m just too dumb, I always wanted to coach a game there, so what the heck, right?” Gottlieb said, per a video clip posted by local news station WBAY. “That actually comes from asking the players, ‘Hey guys, if there’s one place you could play on earth, where would it be?’ And they were like, ‘What about Kansas?'”

Gottlieb joked that he wanted to “dial back our schedule a little bit this year.”

“So I called up Coach (Bill) Self about six months ago, and you know … at some point he texted me like ‘Let’s play,'” he said in the clip. “I think the contract’s done. I hope I didn’t jinx it. But we do have the contract.”

Because Nov. 3 is a Monday and the first day of next year’s college basketball season, that game would also serve as the season opener for KU. That is a slight departure for the Jayhawks after they hosted historically Black universities from the MEAC for the McLendon Classic to begin the season each of the last two years.

Gottlieb has some history with KU and Allen Fieldhouse specifically. For one thing, he played in the Big 12 as a standout point guard at Oklahoma State and is one of college basketball’s career assist leaders.

On Feb. 22, 1999, Gottlieb famously entered KU’s senior-night game wearing his shorts backwards and was subjected to “shorts on backwards” chants from the Allen Fieldhouse crowd before having to turn them around during a first-half timeout.

In later years, he has frequently commented on KU sports in the course of his radio career and, before starting at Green Bay, pitched his services for various Big 12 jobs, such as at OSU or Kansas State. He also once served as a cohost of Bill’s Basketball Boogie, a fundraising event for Self’s foundation.