2024 college basketball coaching carousel

Cliff Ellis decides the transfer portal and NIL are no fun. Need a ruling from the irony police here.

CCU's Ellis, active wins leader, says he's retiring

 

Charleston Southern's Barclay Radebaugh also stepped down. Must be something in the water down there.

 

That's funny shit w/the irony line.

Some real Jim Calhoun-with-Kevin Ollie/classic alpha male vibes here. He clearly wanted Benny Moss to get the first crack and probably realized Moss wouldn't get a sniff if a full search commenced b/c he was an abject disaster at UNCW almost 15 years ago. Of course, how'd Kevin Ollie work out after the all-time WTF national title in 2014?

Also, Cliff Ellis is so old, his best team got tripped up by Jim Calhoun's first great UConn team. It's late, it's Tate, it's great!

 

His best teams were with Chris Porter at Auburn. Just a real darn shame someone dropped a dime about Porter having an agent after a year-and-a-half and the wheels fell off.

Actually the one time I ever had any dealings with Ellis he was good. He was coming out with a book in 2000 and I grabbed him for a phone interview since he was a native and got his start at the juco in town. Gave me what I needed for a nice quick interview. I wish I’d put more into it, but I was trying to knock out the call and story before hitting the road to go cover high school football in a tropical depression.

 

One of the more interesting resumes you'll see. Somehow lasted 18 full seasons and never made the NCAA tournament. Even in the Big South, that's kind of wild. Went 8-43 in Big South play the past three years and survived until the start of this season. But eventually, things like a 29-point loss to The Citadel will take a toll.

 

Cliff Ellis is a good dude. Spoke with him at length after a game once. Very accommodating.

 

It's one of the impossible jobs in DI. Worst facility in the country. You have "Charleston" in your name but you're 25 minutes north of downtown. Athletics budget is nil. He had the Bucs pretty competitive for much of his tenure there but the ceiling is super low.

And can echo on Ellis. Always enjoyed chatting with him in my Big South days.

 

I covered his press conference when he announced he was leaving Clemson, which was kind of a strange scene. Cliff was crying, and when it was over, he stood at the door and hugged everyone — yes, including the reporters — as they were leaving. It was very awkward. I managed to slip by when he’d grabbed someone else.

 

DePaul fires Tony Stubblefield:



Just a broken program.

 

No tournament appearances since 2004. Last winning regular season came in 2006-07. Have only ever finished better than 8th in the Big East once since joining the league in 2005-06. Yeah, DePaul is a mess.

 

Life's a lot harder when you don't have the "best owner in college sports" in your corner like he did at his previous job.

Seems that nobody can win there.

 

Dave Leitao, round 3?

It's incredible to me that a Big East school in a recruiting hotspot makes a habit of losing to low-major teams and getting skulldragged by everyone in their conference. Just from the law of averages, you'd think DePaul would be good sometimes.

If Loyola can win, DePaul has no excuse.