Keifer Sykes reflects on rookie season with Pacers, discusses what’s next after being cut
Keifer Sykes spent 46 games with the Pacers during his rookie season.
James Boyd, Indianapolis Star
UWGB men’s basketball coach Doug Gottlieb has rebuilt his coaching staff for the upcoming season.New hires include experienced coach Kerry Rupp as offensive coordinator and former UWGB student assistant Keil Ganz.Former UWGB star Keifer Sykes joins the staff as general manager, focusing on fundraising and recruiting.
GREEN BAY – University of Wisconsin-Green Bay men’s basketball coach Doug Gottlieb spent the offseason reconstructing his roster, signing five players out of the NCAA transfer portal and welcoming two incoming freshmen.
But his work also involved his coaching staff.
With Jordan McCabe and Damon Archibald departing, Gottlieb has added both youth and experience to go with holdovers Aerick Sanders and Jerry Smith.
Along with the hiring of Andy Ground earlier in the offseason as the assistant to the head coach and defensive coordinator and promoting Kaden LeCapitaine to director of operations, the Phoenix is set to add longtime coach Kerry Rupp and former UWGB student assistant Keil Ganz to the bench.
Gottlieb also landed a noteworthy name as the program’s general manager with the hiring of UWGB legend Keifer Sykes.
“I don’t want people to read a quote about a new staff and take it to mean something negative about the old staff,” Gottlieb said. “Jordan McCabe was awesome. (Former director of operations) Dennis Harrington taught me a lot about some of the game-play things, when to call a timeout, things to run. Ways of teaching things.
“Damon Archibald, we tell everybody, we don’t have (former guard) Anthony Roy if not for Arch. He brought energy every day to practice.
“But, I’m really excited about the staff.”
Here’s a quick look at the new staff members with the season a few months away.
Kerry Rupp
Rupp has done it all in college basketball. He played for both Utah State and Southern Utah in the 1970s and has been a head coach or an assistant at the Division I level for more than two decades.
His first collegiate job was under Rick Majerus at Utah from 2000 to 2004 — Rupp spent the previous 24 years coaching high school sports — before becoming the associate head coach for Mike Davis at Indiana from 2004 to 2006 and an assistant for him at UAB in 2006-07.
Rupp was named the head coach at Louisiana Tech in 2007 and went 66-77 in four seasons.
He also had stints at schools such as Hawaii, Montana and Oregon State before teaming with Davis again at Detroit.
He will be the offensive coordinator for the Phoenix.
“He’s obviously ridiculously overqualified for the position,” Gottlieb said. “First thing is, he was a player himself. He was a high school coach and then he was an assistant for Rick Majerus. A lot like Jerry Smith playing for Rick Pitino, if you coached with Rick Majerus, you have been taught the right way.
“The people who advised me on Kerry actually worked with Kerry. Everybody is like, ‘He’s a detail-oriented coach.’”
Keil Ganz
When Gottlieb was hired at UWGB in May 2024, he spoke with Northern Michigan coach Matt Majkrzak, who also started his coaching career as a student assistant for the Phoenix under Brian Wardle.
“Because they are Green Bay guys, they are just such good guys that I was immediately drawn to them,” Gottlieb said about Ganz and Majkrzak. “When you start recruiting, you start kind of gravitating towards the Michigan Tech guys, the Northern Michigan guys. They are just really good people.
“My expression is that we want to put the Wisconsin back in Green Bay. We want Wisconsin kids, and they have done a great job of recruiting kids. Keil is from Green Bay. He wanted to be here. He’s an excellent defensive coach.”
Indeed, Gottlieb couldn’t have found many coaches as connected to the Green Bay area as Ganz.
Along with his previous stint at UWGB, Ganz was the boys basketball coach at Kewaunee and then spent three years as a coach and recruiting coordinator under Gary Grzesk at St. Norbert College.
He even has a decade of experience at the AAU level in Wisconsin, coaching with the Wisconsin Jets, Wisconsin Shooters and Wisconsin Playground Club.
Gottlieb said Ganz will blend well with Ground’s old-school defensive style. Ganz knows all that stuff matters but can offer a few creative wrinkles.
“The other reality is, both Kerry and Andy are a little bit older,” Gottlieb said. “So, however long they do it for, and I told them, their job is to not just coach the team, but to coach us. We are young and inexperienced, and we have got to get better.
“I watched Northern play a ton this year, I watched them play in person against (Michigan) Tech,” Gottlieb said. “So, when the job came open, I was talking to Matt. He was just like, ‘If you are going to take (Ganz), tell me now. He’s my best friend and I think he’s great.’
“We need someone with Green Bay ties. It’s important. Again, Wisconsin is important. Green Bay is important. People who love the place, know the place, know what it takes to win here. He checks all those boxes.”
Keifer Sykes
One of the greatest players in program history needs no introduction to fans.
Sykes was a star point guard for UWGB from 2011 to 2015 and finished his career with 2,096 points, 526 assists, 467 rebounds and 155 steals.
Tony Bennett (2,285) is the only UWGB player with more career points.
Sykes played 32 games for the Indianapolis Pacers in 2021-22 and has had a successful career overseas.
“It means the world to me as I’ve been granted this opportunity to have a position with the University and a program that truly changed my life,” Sykes said in a statement. “I was born in Chicago, but I was raised in Green Bay, where I became an adult, and the love and support from the community is what ultimately helped me grow and thrive in my time as a student and after.
“In Green Bay, my teammates, coaches, and peers all grew and succeeded together, and that’s what I’m looking forward to continuing to do with me being back with the Green Bay Phoenix. As a forward and high-performing group, we will collectively continue to build and mentor the student-athletes, and I’m passionately looking forward to helping develop the program on and off the court.”
Gottlieb knows it’s important when running a program to connect with the past teams and players, especially successful ones.
Gottlieb watched Sykes and former center Alec Brown lead some good UWGB teams. He also has known Wardle, a former Marquette player, since the days when Gottlieb was being heavily recruited by the Golden Eagles.
When Gottlieb got the job, he reached out to Sykes.
Sykes told him he would like to return to Green Bay to run a camp. Gottlieb helped roll out the red carpet for Sykes to hold that camp at the Kress Center last August, even letting him stay at his house while Gottlieb was out of town.
“I thought that was really important with Keifer, that we made him feel as important to us as he was as a basketball player,” Gottlieb said. “From there, we kind of built a relationship. We spoke several times during the season. He reached out to some of the guys during the year just encouraging them.
“Probably late last season, (UWGB athletic director) Josh (Moon) and I sat down and we started talking about structure. Josh was like, ‘What do you think about a GM?’ Keifer was really active in his pursuit of wanting to do it. I trust his eyes in who can play, who can’t play.”
Sykes will help UWGB with fundraising and recruiting players, including the Chicago area. It’s something he’s already been doing the past few months.
His duties will be what his schedule allows, since Sykes still plans to play overseas this season.
“Which is great,” Gottlieb said. “He’s watching different games and playing against different people. He has such a great work ethic and he’s going to stay here through when his jersey is retired (on Oct. 11). We want him to work out with our guys. It gives (junior guard) LeBron Thomas the chance to guard a pro point guard. If you can stop Keifer Sykes, you can guard people in the Horizon League.”
“He helps us in a bunch of ways. His presence. His name. You want him to vouch for you. You want him to say, ‘Hey, we are in a good place.’ That means a lot to me that he wants to do that.”