In a cruel twist of fate, the Green Bay Phoenix mens basketball program will be looking for a new head coach yet again.

Sundance Wicks was officially named the new head coach at Wyoming on Sunday night, replacing Jeff Linder who resigned to take an assistant coaching job at Texas Tech.

It is a massive blow for a program that was on the rise but now must quickly find a replacement incredibly late in the college basketball offseason calendar.

“We are so thankful and proud of the work Sundance did during his time in Green Bay,” UWGB athletic director Josh Moon said in a statement released by the school. “He reenergized our program, university and this entire region and we will be forever grateful for the mark he made on Phoenix basketball.”

“We wish he and his family all the best in Wyoming in this next chapter of their journey.”

The coaching carousel had come to a stop for the most part with almost every head coach opening accounted for, as is often the case once May comes around.  But with Linder leaving the head coaching ranks to take a job as an assistant in the Big 12, it opened up a role that Wicks had previously called a “dream job” and a chance to return home.

The Gillette, Wyoming native had previously spent three seasons as an assistant with the Cowboys before coming to Green Bay and helping engineer one of the greatest single season turnarounds in college basketball history, taking a team that went 3-29 the season before and finish 18-14 this season with the Phoenix.

It was always a matter of time before Wicks moved on if he had continued success at Green Bay – such is the life of a mid-major basketball program – but most Phoenix fans would have assumed there was more time.

Despite the poor timing this late in the offseason, it was likely an opportunity that was too good to pass up. 

“You cannot put into words what it means for a kid from the country roads outside of Gillette to represent the State of Wyoming and the Cowboys as their new head basketball coach,” Wicks said in a statement.

Wyoming will pay UWGB $705,000 to buyout Wicks contract thanks to a newly signed extension that the coach and Moon signed last month to make him the highest paid coach in program history. 

Now, Moon must decide whether the program will conduct a true search for its next head coach or perhaps elevate current assistant coach Pat Monaghan, possibly playing next season with an interim head coach. Either way, it sounds like the program intends to move fast. 

“I would expect us to have this figured out in the next week,” he told the Green Bay Press-Gazette.

As for the roster, Green Bay currently has three scholarships available if everyone remains with the program.  However, despite the NCAA transfer portal closing to new entries on May 1, current Phoenix players now have 30 days to enter the portal if they choose due to the coaching change. 

“I think, at least for a good number of the guys, Green Bay means something,” Moon told the newspaper. “Take the coach out of it, Green Bay is to their core a special place. They want to be here. I really believe that. Now, in this world, who knows what happens?”

“But I think we do have a core group where some of the regional guys want to be at Green Bay. That could change, but I sure hope guys would want to play for this institution and play for this community still.”