Chants host Auburn after upsetting Tigers last year

For coach Cliff Ellis, building up the Coastal Carolina men’s basketball program these last eight-plus years has not only been about the results and breakthroughs on the court, but also trying to elevate the Chanticleers’ stature in any and every other way.

And part of that process has meant leaning on his relationships in the collegiate coaching community while, frankly, asking for a few favors.

Ellis has used home-and-home or more often two-for-one arrangements to lure the likes of LSU, Clemson and Mississippi to Conway in recent years. On Wednesday night, he and the Chants will welcome Auburn to The HTC Center a year after upsetting the Tigers with a win on the road to start their three-game contract.

“This is going to be a game that fans don’t get a lot of opportunities to see, a power [conference] team coming in,” Ellis said. “Certainly LSU did it, Clemson did it, Ole Miss did it, now Auburn’s doing it, Wake Forest will do it. So I think that says something about the brand of basketball here.

“At the same point in time this opportunity needs to be taken advantage of because you’ve got a team like Auburn coming in from the SEC. It needs to be a madhouse, it needs to be about college basketball and the opportunity that presents itself for Coastal.”

Ellis used his weekly media session to implore the Coastal Carolina fan base to fill the gym Wednesday night and to again underscore how significant and difficult it is to have SEC or ACC teams come to Conway.

Wake Forest will be the next on the list as the Chants begin a two-for-one series by visiting the Demon Deacons on the road later this month and again next season before hosting the ACC opponent during the 2017-18 season.

But for the handful of “Yes’s” he’s received, Ellis says he’s gotten a lot more “No’s” when he’s bumped into a coaching colleague from a power conference on the road or picked up the phone and broached the idea of setting up a game here.

“Lately, all ‘No’s,’” he said. “I [asked] Buzz Williams at Virginia Tech, he said, ‘Are you crazy? We’re not coming down there. I’m not going to do that.’ So a lot of those.”

Ellis hopes the move to the higher-tiered Sun Belt Conference next season makes it easier to line up such games, but one game at a time.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity and fans should be excited about this type of game,” he said of the matchup Wednesday night.

The Chants are off to a 3-3 start to the season with their lone Division I win coming on the road against a solid College of Charleston team.

Auburn, meanwhile, comes to town with a 3-1 record under second-year head coach Bruce Pearl.

The Tigers have averaged 92.5 points per game while picking up wins over Alabama-Birmingham, Georgia Southern and Northwestern State along with a loss against Colorado.

They have a new look this season with junior point guard Kareem Canty, a transfer from Marshall averaging 18.8 points, 6.5 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game, running the offense.

“Bruce says he’ll be one of the two or three best point guards in the league,” Ellis said.

He has a deep supporting cast, as well. Tyler Harris, a 6-foot-10 graduate transfer from Providence, is averaging 16 points and 7 rebounds per game, junior guard TJ. Dunans is averaging 16.5 points per game and 6-foot-7 senior forward Cinmeon Bowers, a returning starter, is contributing 11.8 points and 7.5 rebounds per contest.

“They’ve got a lot of pieces,” Ellis said. “Without question, this will be as talented as any team we’ll play.”

The Chants defeated the Tigers on the road, 58-54, last December as Badou Diagne and Warren Gillis hit a pair of late jumpers to complete a comeback victory.

It was an especially significant game for Ellis as he made his return to Auburn, where he had spent 10 seasons as head coach from 1994-2004, earning National Coach of the Year honors in 1999 for leading the program to a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and a Sweet 16 appearance.

The start of this three-game series spawned from a conversation with Pearl, who shortly after he was hired by Auburn encouraged Ellis to come back for a reunion with former players. Ellis, in turn, worked out the two-for-one arrangement.

“I’m a huge supporter of Bruce Pearl because he’s the one that helped make this happen. He’s a big factor in this,” Ellis said. “... It’s just an opportunity that we don’t get around here a lot.”

Part of the obstacle in attracting SEC or ACC opponents to play a road game here is that, well, Coastal Carolina has shown a penchant for rising to the occasion and winning these games.

Since the 2010-11 season, the Chants are 5-7 in regular-season games against teams from the traditional power conferences, with two wins over LSU, two wins over Clemson and that win last year at Auburn.

For the players, these games are always viewed as an opportunity to make a statement – or in the Chants’ case now, reiterate a statement.

“It’s just a great opportunity for us to show the world what we’re made of and to continue making a name for [ourselves], especially with us going to the Sun Belt Conference next year,” senior forward Tristian Curtis said.

It’s also an opportunity to build some momentum after an inconsistent start to the season.

Coastal Carolina has been led so far by junior guard Elijah Wilson, who is averaging 13.8 points per game and just reached the 1,000-career point milestone in the team’s last game. Diagne is averaging 13.5 points and 7.3 rebounds per game, junior point guard Shivaughn Wiggins is averaging 12.8 points and sophomore guard Jaylen Shaw – who started his collegiate career in the SEC with South Carolina – is averaging 11.2 points.

“It’s just a big opportunity,” Shaw said. “Of course [facing] a bigger school, bigger players, a bigger team, bigger conference, we’re going to be excited. ... But at the end of the day we keep the same mentality for every game. We want to win and just play as hard as we can.”

This story was originally published December 1, 2015 at 5:38 PM with the headline "Chants host Auburn after upsetting Tigers last year."