Cliff Ellis

Cliff Ellis (born December 5, 1945) is an American former college basketball coach, who finished his career as the head coach at Coastal Carolina University.

Ellis finished his career as the ninth winningest coach in NCAA Division I history.

Ellis is a member of four Halls of Fame after entering the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 2021 and Clemson's in 2013.

He was already part of the Mobile Sports and Cumberland University Halls of Fame.

Ellis has compiled a Division I record of 828–559 (.596) and an overall record of 906–571 (.613).

He ranks third in NCAA Division I wins among active coaches.

He is also just one of four coaches in NCAA Division I history to make multiple NCAA Tournament appearances with four separate schools and has been named conference Coach of the Year six times in his career.

He is the only coach in NCAA Division I history to win at least 170 games at four different institutions.

As of the end of the 2022–23 season, he is the all-time leader in NCAA Division I wins for basketball coaches who have coached in the state of South Carolina.

He has 471 wins with Clemson (177) and Coastal Carolina (294).

Former South Carolina head coach, Frank McGuire, is a distant second with 283 wins.

He graduated from Florida State University in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in physical education and has a master's degree (1972) in the same subject from Middle Tennessee State University.

Ellis was head coach and Athletic Director at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee from 1972 to 1975.

He won two TJCAA Championships and finished 4th nationally in the final 1973–74 regular season NJCAA poll.

Ellis compiled a 78–12 record at Cumberland University.

Ellis was the head coach at the University of South Alabama from 1975 to 1984.

He is the all-time winningest coach in South Alabama history with a 171–84 record during nine seasons.

When Ellis became head coach, the administrators at South Alabama were thinking of dropping to NCAA Division II.

Four years later, he had the Jaguars in the NCAA tournament and six seasons later, they were ranked in the nation's top 10.

Ellis, who was also the athletic director during part of his tenure, led the Jaguars to three Sun Belt titles, two NCAA Tournament appearances, and two NITs.

His South Alabama teams won Sun Belt Conference regular-season championships in 1979, 1980, and 1981.

At both Clemson and South Alabama he holds school records for coaching victories, and he is the second-winningest coach at both Auburn and Coastal Carolina.

Ellis was born in Marianna, Florida.

On April 3, 1984, the former South Alabama coach was named the head basketball coach at Clemson University.

In 10 years at Clemson, Ellis led the Tigers to postseason play eight times, including three NCAA Tournaments.

He was a two-time ACC Coach of the Year (1987 and 1990).

His best team was the 1989-90 unit, which tallied the only Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season title in school history and made it all the way to the Sweet Sixteen — the second-deepest NCAA Tournament run in school history.

In 1990, he coached Clemson to its only ACC regular-season first-place finish.

The Tigers reached the Sweet 16 in 1998–99 and in 2002–03 under Ellis.

Ellis coached Auburn to what were, at the time, the top three single-season victory marks in school history, with the 1998–99 season, the 1999–2000 season when Auburn went 24–10, and the 2002–03 season where Auburn went 22–12.

He was national coach of the year in 1999 at Auburn, when his Tigers won 29 games and captured the school's first SEC championship in 40 years.

Ellis led the Tigers to the 1999 SEC Championship with a 29–4 record, at that time the most wins ever recorded by a Division I team in the state of Alabama.

Ellis claimed his 500th career Division I coaching victory in a 100–71 win over Georgia State November 26, 2002, to become only the 34th coach to reach the milestone since the NCAA started Division I play in 1948–49.

A year after going to the Sweet 16, Ellis' Tigers regressed to an overall .500 record and a losing conference record.

Auburn fired him after that season.

He remained in the Auburn community, where his wife Carolyn ran for a state legislature seat in 2006.

His 186 wins are the second-most in Auburn history, behind only Joel Eaves.

On Monday, July 2, 2007, Ellis was named Coastal Carolina's head basketball coach.

With a victory over UNC Asheville on February 3, 2015, Ellis became the only coach in NCAA Division I history to tally 150-plus wins at four institutions.

The basketball playing surface in the Dallas Floyd Phoenix Arena at Cumberland was named in his honor on August 17, 2018.