11 December 2022
CONWAY, S.C. — Coastal Carolina University head men’s basketball coach Cliff Ellis picked up his 900th career win in CCU’s 102-39 victory over Regent University on Saturday afternoon at the HTC Center.
With the win, Ellis becomes only the third active coach with 900 career wins, joining Jim Boeheim (Syracuse) and Bob Huggins (West Virginia).
The Chants struggled out of the gate and trailed 7-6 at the first media timeout. CCU then gained momentum coming out of the break to outscore the visitors 19-0 to push the lead out to 25-7 with 10 minutes left in the first half. They went on to lead 49-17 at the break.
For the first time this season, the Chants had six players reach double digits in pushing their record to 5-4 on the year.
Jomaru Brown led CCU with 20 points, while Jimmy Nichols came off the bench to score a career-high 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting.
Every CCU player recorded points in the blowout win, as the Chants finished the game shooting 53.1 percent from the field. The Chants were not as sharp on their three-point attempts only hitting 3-of-18, and had their worse shooting performance of the season from the free throw line, connecting on just 13 of their 21 attempts for 61.9 percent.
Regent’s Stanley Adjei, who came into the game averaging 17.0 points per game, hit his scoring average with 17 points for the Royals. He hit a game-best four three-pointers while also grabbing six rebounds and recording two steals.
The Chants outrebounded Regent 53-33 and forced the Royals into 30 turnovers, which led directly to 43 CCU points. CCU added 20 assists on its 43 field goals and had a season-high 21 steals, which are the most steals by a CCU team since recording 24 back in 1990 against Erskine College.
Coastal is back on the road when the Chants travel for a return game with the University of South Dakota Coyotes on Wednesday, Dec. 14, at 9 p.m. ET in Vermillion, S.D. The two teams met back on Nov. 26 in Conway, with the Chants pulling out a late 66-59 victory.