After nearly a decade of playing some sort of hybrid home schedule, the Green Bay Phoenix mens basketball program is giving up on the Resch Center and will play all of its regular season home games at the Kress Center.

The program officially released its full 2026/2027 schedule last week and, while it features two of the highest profile exhibition games possible being played at the Resch, the balance of the schedule will be played on the UW-Green Bay campus.

Green Bay will host the Wisconsin Badgers (October 15) and Marquette Golden Eagles (October 19) in exhibition games at the Resch before hosting Illinois State in an exhibition at the Kress.

The rest of the non-conference schedule features just one home game against a Division I opponent before the usual Horizon League slate begins. 

The number of games played at the Resch has seemingly been dropping on an annual basis, so it is no surprise that eventually playing games there would no longer happen.

The Phoenix played just three games there last season, going 1-2 in those games.  The team was 7-2 against Division I opponents at the Kress Center. 

“I don’t know if it’s mental as much as physical, but we were kind of humming and then we came to the Resch and we felt like it really kind of threw off our rhythm,” head coach Doug Gottlieb told Inside Wisconsin on WNFL radio Wednesday morning. “We like the Kress.”

Playing the entirety of the home schedule on campus has been one of Gottlieb’s priorities. He said the players prefer it, it gives the team their best chance to win, and it makes financial sense vs playing in the cavernous Resch. 

“Until we can put seven or 8,000 in there a night, till it’s like old Brown County [Arena] was, what’s the point?” Gottlieb said.

“As I told people last year, I met with Chancellor Mike [Alexander] after my first year and he asked, ‘if there’s one thing I can do to help you, what would it be?’ And I said, ‘I would like to play all our games at the Kress.’ And he was surprised as to why. I said, ‘Well, look, our program to change has to think of only two things – what gives us the best chance to win and what makes us the most money.”

“We practice here, we live here, the kids want to play here. The players like playing here.”

Still, it’s a tough pill to swallow for some fans of a program that just a decade ago had an average attendance that would not fit inside the Kress Center.

And as far as the fan experience goes, the venue pales in comparison to the Resch as far as available concessions and restrooms, lacks many of the pregame and postgame entertainment options available at the Resch, and adds considerable time to the commute for anyone coming from the I-41 corridor. 

“The only people who want to be at the Resch are people who are, you know, donors that they want to go to D2, or The Bar, Margaritas afterwards,” Gottlieb said. “And I get it. I understand this is a little bit removed from the [Fox] Valley.”

“It’s just people’s egos, you know?” Gottlieb added. “Coaches have egos, too, and they want to play in like…. what’s the point?”

“Do I want to play our games in Fiserv [Forum]?  Yeah, but I don’t want to play in front of 1,500 people.”

Several factors have contributed to the significantly decreased fan attendance including the overall decline of the program, scheduling and conference realignment removing high profile games from the home schedule, and general trends in college athletics like NIL and the transfer portal that make it more difficult to form a connection in the current environment.

A resurgent return to relevance last season could have the Phoenix poised for a big season this year. The program will be hoping that fans will come to campus to help create the hostile environment that the women’s team enjoys on a regular basis. 

A nationally televised game against Purdue Fort Wayne last season showed what is possible with a full student section and an engaged crowd in the more intimate Kress Center. Will that become the norm this season, or will casual fans continue to avoid the Kress as history has previously shown?

“When all we got to get is 2,500, 3,000 here [at the Kress], it’s an awesome environment,” Gottlieb said. “Same number of people at the Resch, it’s not. It doesn’t look good and the players don’t like it as much.”

“It’s not a good home court advantage and we don’t make, we lose money. We don’t make money. So that’s why.”