Ellis on brink of milestone as Chants hit the road

Coach Cliff Ellis hasn’t made any mention of his latest impending milestone to his Coastal Carolina men’s basketball team, but plenty of people have made a point to mention it to him.

Ellis is one win shy of reaching 700 victories as a Division I head coach. He can reach the milestone Thursday night, when his Chanticleers visit Gardner-Webb, diving into Big South play after an 11-day gap in the schedule.

Ellis says he’d prefer the focus just be on the squad’s continued growth. But to that end, he’d love to reach this latest wins mark as soon as possible.

“Well, people keep bringing it up. It keeps being brought up, so you can’t avoid it, so it is what it is,” Ellis said Wednesday before the Chants boarded the bus. “My concern is just about winning the next game, but there’s no question about it, it’s been brought up a lot. So I’m ready for it to happen and let’s get it behind us so we can concentrate on some other things.”

The NCAA actually recognizes Ellis with 777 career wins, incorporating his 78 wins from his time at Cumberland College – then a junior college – because the institution now known as Cumberland University later became a four-year school. That’s just how the NCAA record book works, so Ellis is officially considered the third-winningest active coach in Division I men’s basketball behind Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Syracuse’s Jim Boheim and 19th all-time for career wins regardless of NCAA level.

But in his time as head coach of Division I programs South Alabama, Clemson, Auburn and now the last nine seasons at Coastal Carolina, Ellis’ career- record is 699-440.

He picked up win No. 600 five years ago in a victory at Liberty as Coastal Carolina was in the midst of a second-straight 28-win season, as while launching its resurgence – one that has now seen the Chants reach back-to-back NCAA tournaments. And while he didn’t want to dwell on the numbers, Ellis acknowledged that any such accomplishment remains special to him.

“Yeah they are, because it’s a reflection of all the people who have been a part of it,” he said. “It’s not an individual honor – it really is not. It’s about the players that played for you and the teams that you had and the relationships. It’s about all the people who have been a part of it. There’s been so many people, it’s a long list – every player, coach, the administrators. It’s a long list. It’s all of them. I just represent it.”

Junior guard Elijah Wilson says the milestone has not been brought up or discussed among the players.

“Actually we didn’t know anything about it,” he said. “I heard about it earlier during the season, but I wasn’t keeping up with how many wins he had. He’s a great coach, he deserves that and hopefully we can pull off this win and put him a little more in the history books.”

As for the Chants, their unfortunate run of injury and health setbacks continues as senior forward Tristian Curtis recently rolled his ankle, this in addition dealing with a case of shingles.

Curtis is still expected to start Thursday night, but as Ellis said, “It seems like every week we talk about [injury setbacks].”

So as Coastal Carolina now enters the true conference grind with a 7-5 overall record and a 1-1 Big South mark from two early league games, he says the emphasis is on building up the team’s limited depth.

The Chants have gotten solid production from their core with Wilson leading the way at 13.5 points per game, senior forward Badou Diagne averaging 13.1 points and 7.3 rebounds, junior point guard Shivaughn Wiggins scoring 12.6 points per game and sophomore guard Jaylen Shaw chipping in 11.3 per contest.

But senior forward Michel Enanga, a key contributor off the bench, was lost to knee surgery and starting junior guard Colton Ray-St Cyr isn’t expected back until sometime in February while recovering from a broken wrist. That has thrust true freshman forward Kevin Holmes Jr., junior guard Ron Trapps and freshman guard Christian Adams into bigger roles.

“We’ve had great practices. We’re just trying to build our depth,” Ellis said. “I think as we go through the remainder of these 16 games ... I’m trying to shoot for getting our depth strengthened. I’m not worried about our starting five – our starting five is good – but our depth is going to be the key with regards to how well we do because we’ve had some setbacks and we’ve got guys that are continuing to try to find themselves. And I think how successful we’re going to be is going to be dependent on those guys because you just can’t play 40 minutes with your starting five. We’ve had some time to work on that and we’ve got two tough games this week.”

Gardner-Webb (6-8, 1-1) has a misleading record after a strong non-conference schedule that includes losses at Iowa, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, George Washington and LSU. The Runnin’ Bulldogs no longer have bruising forward Jerome Hill, who caused all sorts of trouble for the Chants last year, but they are led by junior forward Tyrell Nelson (14.4 points, 7.3 rebounds per game) and senior guard Harold McBride (12.6 points per game).

More to the point, Gardner-Webb has been a thorn in Coastal Carolina’s side, winning four of the last seven meetings. The teams traded punches last year with the Chants getting swept in two regular-season meetings before winning 73-70 in the Big South tournament semifinals.

“Not just with Gardner-Webb, any conference games is going to be close,” Wilson said. “Everybody knows who everybody is and everybody knows how each team plays, so you have to go into every game with fight.”

This story was originally published December 30, 2015 at 7:46 PM with the headline "Ellis on brink of milestone as Chants hit the road."