Gottlieb was perceived to be waiting on Baron Davis to choose a school, as UCLA and Georgia Tech both indicated that Gottlieb was their second choice, after Davis. After Davis chose UCLA, where Gottlieb's family had season tickets for 20 years and his brother and sister were alums (sister was captain of the cheer squad), Gottlieb looked elsewhere to play college ball. His final schools were Marquette, Georgia Tech, Alabama, Oklahoma State, Utah, Oregon, and Tennessee. In 1997, Gottlieb accepted an offer from Oklahoma State coach Eddie Sutton (under whom Gottlieb's father had once been assistant coach) to attend the university. He immediately took over as point guard for an Oklahoma State team that had gone 17–15 in consecutive years, and led the Cowboys to the NCAA tournament.