​The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay men’s basketball team won’t play its first game for more than two months, but this could be shaping up as the most talented roster the Phoenix has put together in Doug Gottlieb’s first three years as coach.“The word talent is a very, we could argue about the word talent,” Gottlieb said after UWGB’s practice Aug. 12. “Are you talented because you are more athletic or are you talented because you can actually play basketball? Is [former point guard Preston Ruedinger] as talented as some of the guards we have here athletically? Probably not. But who would you rather have playing?“I do think it’s the best collection of athletes that we have had. Fitting them together, figuring out who, how, that is our job as coaches. But, yes, it’s a higher level of athlete.”The Phoenix won’t sneak up on anybody like it might have in 2025-26, when it went from a team that won just four games in Gottlieb’s first season in 2024-25 to 18 victories.The total included beating Purdue Fort Wayne in a Horizon League tournament opener, the first tournament win by UWGB in six years.The success was enough to earn Gottlieb a contract extension in the offseason that makes him the highest paid employee in school history.UWGB no longer has Ruedinger leading the team, at least not on the court after he was hired as an assistant coach this summer.It lost all-conference guard C.J. O’Hara to fellow Horizon member Wright State in the transfer portal.It doesn’t have 6-foot-9 forward Ramel Bethea to help protect the rim after he left for The Citadel.It lost third-leading scorer Justin Allen to graduation, although there still is at least a possibility he could be granted an extra season of eligibility by the NCAA.The team also no longer has 6-8 forward Vukasin Todorovic, who is now at DI Niagara.But Gottlieb and his assistant coaches filled the holes quite well after first retaining 6-6 senior forward Marcus Hall and promising 7-footer Maruan Cicic.They signed senior guard Jaxon Edwards, who led IU Indy in rebounding and blocks last season and is an almost perfect replacement for O’Hara. They found a potential defensive stopper in former Fort Lewis guard Stewart Erhart, a big scorer in former Odessa College guard Ahmere Carson and several players with good size.They even have a potential replacement for former Calvin University star Jalen Overway, who joined the team in April but tore an anterior cruciate ligament a short time later, with the recent signing of 6-8 Slovenian forward Tadej Colnaric.He will join the team next week.“We can throw out 6-7 to 6-8, 6-9 across the board,” Gottlieb said. “We can play a little smaller because we have several quality guards that are point guards but can also score off the basketball. I think we have a more traditional lineup.“I like what we have. … It’s always different when the lights are on and the popcorn is popping.”Challenging start for the PhoenixUWGB won’t hav