UWGB coach Doug Gottlieb holds no grudges after recruit Shelton Williams-Dryden leaves

• Shelton Williams-Dryden left the UWGB men’s basketball program after only a few days.
• Williams-Dryden enrolled at UWGB but decided the program wasn’t the right fit.
• UWGB is now looking to utilize the open scholarship, potentially recruiting 7-foot forward Maruan Cicic.

GREEN BAY – Shelton Williams-Dryden still might play college basketball this season, but it won’t be for the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Williams-Dryden left the program last week after a few days of summer workouts, and the decision to part ways with the Phoenix has not changed.

UWGB coach Doug Gottlieb has moved on, but he holds no grudges toward a player he had for less than a week.  

“I personally recruited Shelton Williams-Dryden,” Gottlieb said. “I think he’s a tremendous player. I love his energy, his infectious personality and really love his versatility as sort of a Swiss army knife, garbage man who can find points, block shots, defend multiple positions.

“There is no negatives to Shelton as a player or as a person. He spent three days here, two workouts and one team meeting. He felt like it wasn’t the right fit for him. So, all I can tell you is that we are building a really, really solid team, and we want volunteers, not hostages. If this is not somewhere he wants to be, then we wish him nothing but the best.”

Williams-Dryden has not responded to multiple text messages about his decision to leave. Although he told The Portal Report on June 5 that he has decommitted to UWGB, the process isn’t quite that easy.

He already was enrolled at the school. There will be some work to transfer to another institution, just like it would be for any student.

UWGB athletic director Josh Moon said the school is working through the next steps and that the situation is a bit fluid right now. Moon said that, ultimately, it is up to the student what they want to do.

Gottlieb said Williams-Dryden did not express to him why he felt UWGB wasn’t a good fit after only a couple of days.

He asked him if there was anything they could do for him as coaches, and Williams-Dryden told him the coaches had all been great. He asked him about his new teammates, and Williams-Dryden told him they are all “really good dudes,” and that they still were exchanging text messages.

Williams-Dryden’s mother is battling some health issues, and Gottlieb offered any help needed with his family.

The 6-foot-6 Williams-Dryden spent last season at West Georgia, an NCAA Division I school in Carrollton.

He averaged 17.6 points and 7.5 rebounds while shooting 55.2%.

The Milwaukee native, who played at Bay View High School, spent his first two collegiate seasons with Milwaukee Area Technical College.

He likely would have had the opportunity for extensive playing time and contribute to a Phoenix team hoping to improve on a 4-28 record in Gottlieb’s first season.

While the Phoenix did not win much, there were success stories to come out of 2024-25.

Gottlieb signed guard Anthony Roy out of the transfer portal late in the offseason last year, and Roy averaged 25.7 points in 11 games before sustaining a season-ending injury in December. It was enough to earn him a nice payday when he left for Oklahoma State in April.  

“I could speculate thinking that he thought he would be Anthony Roy 2.0, but we felt like our best way to be successful is to build a better, stronger, overall team,” Gottlieb said about Williams-Dryden. “We’ve made it very, very clear that the reason that we played with the type of positive energy and tenacity we played with at the end of last year, despite the fact that we weren’t successful enough, was because all the guys wanted to be here.

“It’s not the worst thing in the world, but you want guys that are completely bought into the process. My guess is he didn’t want to get bought into the process, which is OK.”

Williams-Dryden was one of the taller players on a roster that doesn’t have many of them, but the team signed 7-foot forward Maruan Cicic on June 9 after he visited the school last week and took part in summer workouts.

Cicic averaged 17 points and 10 rebounds while playing in the Euroleague Adidas Next Generation Tournament last year.

It’s not ideal to lose a player like Williams-Dryden in June, but UWGB can put his scholarship to good use.

“It’s disruptive only in that as you start to put together plans for what you think your team is going to look like, it will look differently,” Gottlieb said. “But, again, our best basketball we played last year and the best basketball that has been played at Green Bay all looks the same. It’s all with guys that are committed to playing for each other, playing for the school, playing defense, rebounding the ball, playing five as one.

“That’s not a shot at Shelton. That’s just, if he can’t get himself there, that’s OK.”

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