Ellis hopes Chants can exit Big South with a title

Cliff Ellis joked that he feels like the “middle child in the back seat” for the Coastal Carolina men’s basketball team’s final ride through the Big South.

The Chanticleers have already had the conference tournament pulled out of Conway since announcing last month the school would be joining the Sun Belt Conference this coming summer, and Ellis reiterated during Big South media day Monday at the Fairfield Inn & Suites Charlotte Uptown hotel that he knows his opponents will be using the Chants’ pending departure against his team all season.

“I think this is going to be the toughest year because of all the guns that are pointed at us. There is going to be a locker room speech [from every opponent],” Ellis said. “… Nobody wants us to have the trophy. Nobody. You can go around the room – the last team that they want to win the trophy is Coastal Carolina.”

The Chants have won the Big South championship the last two seasons, earning back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances, and they look well equipped to make a run at three straight.

Coastal Carolina was voted second in the Big South’s preseason coaches and media poll, which was unveiled Monday, garnering 10 of 31 possible first-place votes. High Point was tabbed the conference favorite with 17 first-place votes and Winthrop was slotted third.

High Point senior forward John Brown was named the league’s preseason player of the year for the third season in a row – a Big South record – and for the Chants, junior guard Elijah Wilson was voted a first-team selection and senior forward Badou Diagne was a second-team pick.

“I think there’s a lot of good teams,” Ellis said. “It’s obvious that High Point with John Brown back is definitely the team that you want to watch, on paper, because he’s a pro. But not only that they’ve got [seniors] Adam Weary, [Lorenzo] Cugini and people like that. I think a team to watch will be Winthrop … I like Longwood. Asheville.”

The league race was especially tight last year with five teams separated by one game in the final standings, and it is indeed easy to identify a number of teams who could emerge as contenders this season.

“I think Winthrop, Coastal and High Point have probably pulled themselves away from everybody a little bit, and then I think there’s a stack-up of really good teams that all have question marks,” Campbell coach Kevin McGeehan said. “… You just don’t know who it’s going to be.”

As for the Chants, they’re coming off a 24-10 season (including a tie for third in the regular-season standings) and return four starters in junior point guard Shivaughn Wiggins (10.0 points per game), Wilson (11.3), Diagne (9.5 points, 7.3 rebounds per game) and senior forward Tristian Curtis (4.5, 6.2).

They also return three experienced reserves in senior forwards Michel Enanga and Marcus Freeman and junior guard Colton Ray-St Cyr with junior guard Ron Trapps also returning and in the mix for playing time.

Coastal Carolina does lose its top two scorers in veteran guards Warren Gillis and Josh Cameron, but there has been considerable buzz this preseason for sophomore newcomer Jaylen Shaw, a former star at Hartsville High School who transferred from South Carolina and sat out last season. He will plug in immediately as a starter at the two-guard spot and be counted on to help carry the offense.

Ellis’ main concern at this point is that he feels the team is behind schedule in conditioning and preparations after having four players – Wiggins, Shaw, Freeman and Trapps – involved in a car accident near campus just before the start of practice earlier this month.

The players were in the same vehicle trying to turn into campus off S.C. 544 when a driver on the other side of the road waved them on, but another car in the next lane didn’t stop and plowed into them.

“Fortunately we weren’t attending a funeral, I’m telling you,” Ellis said. “But they had concussions and they were out for two weeks. It’s not quite two weeks we’ve been back together. It was a rough start.”

He mentioned that the Chants’ August exhibition trip to play three games against the Cuban national team helped give them a head start on preparations, but he feels the loss of practice time for those players has offset that as they prepare for their trip to the Outrigger Resorts Rainbow Classic in Hawaii, where they’ll open the season Nov. 13.

Either way, it’s clear the Chants have the roster to contend for another Big South championship and that’s what Ellis hopes to do on the way out of the conference.

“When I came in the league it was all about Winthrop. It was all about Winthrop,” he said. “Now the talk is about Coastal and it will be left like that whether we win it or not. But we want to keep that train going.”

This story was originally published October 26, 2015 at 4:26 PM with the headline "Ellis hopes Chants can exit Big South with a title."