CONWAY, S.C. – The Coastal Carolina University men's basketball team will open the 2022-23 season Monday, Nov. 7, as the Chanticleers will host first-time opponent St. Mary's (Md.) at the HTC Center at 7 p.m. ET. The game will be the first of 16 home games the Chants will host this season.
Head coach
Cliff Ellis is beginning his 49th season overall and his 16th roaming the CCU sidelines. He enters the season just five wins short of 900 career wins and is currently ranked third among all active coaches with 895 overall career wins. He is also 10th on the overall NCAA Division I career wins list with 817, needing just 13 more wins to move into ninth.
Ellis will have three returning players on the roster led by redshirt junior
Essam Mostafa, graduate student
Wilfried Likayi, and sophomore
Josh Uduje.
There will be 11 new players in a Chanticleer uniform for the first time when the Seahawks come to town. Transfers include
Kylan Blackmon,
Seth Dawson,
DJ Basey,
Antonio Daye,
Jomaru Brown,
Henry Abraham,
Jaland Whitehead,
Linton Brown,
Joey Kahn,
Jimmy Nichols, and the lone freshman on this year's team,
Marcus Saunders.
The Chanticleers are coming off a 19-14 season and finished seventh in the Sun Belt East Conference with an 8-8 record last year. Following the regular season, the Chants moved into postseason play in The Basketball Classic where they finished as the tournament runner-up to Fresno State.
St. Mary's is also coming off a winning season a year ago, having finished with a 13-10 overall record. The Seahawks finished 12-4 in the United East Conference and return 10 players from last season, including their top-three leading scorers in Daryn Alexander (10.6 ppg), Gary Grant (10.4 ppg), and Jordan Goodwin (10.3 ppg).
The game can be heard on WRNN 99.5 FM Hot Talk and can be watched live on ESPN+. Links for both along with live stats can be found at
www.GoCCUSports.com.
For complete coverage of CCU men's basketball, follow the Chants on social media @CoastalMBB (Twitter), facebook.com/CCUChanticleers (Facebook), @GoCCUSports (Instagram) or visit the official home of Coastal Carolina Athletics at www.GoCCUSports.com.
