Men's Basketball Quartet Earns All-Conference Honors; Ellis Named Coach of the Year

Men's Basketball Quartet Earns All-Conference Honors; Ellis Named Coach of the Year

Joseph Harris and Chad Gray earn All-Big South First Team honors, while Kierre Greenwood and Logan Johnson earn All-Freshman and All-Academic teams, respectively.

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Chad Gray earns the All-Big South First Team selection in his first season in a Chanticleer uniform.

March 1, 2010

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Coastal Carolina University head men’s basketball coach Cliff Ellis was named the Coach of the Year, while the Chanticleers earned two All-First Team selections, one All-Freshman Team honoree and one All-Academic Team member as the Big South Conference announced its annual postseason awards March 1.

Redshirt-senior Joseph Harris (Lejeune, N.C./Lejeune) and redshirt-junior Chad Gray (Kingstree, S.C./South Carolina) earned First Team honors, while freshman Kierre Greenwood (Cincinnati, Ohio/New Creations (Ind.)) was named to the All-Freshman Team. Redshirt-senior Logan Johnson (Knoxville, Tenn./South Doyle) also was selected to the All-Academic Team.

Ellis earns his first Coach of the Year honor at Coastal and his sixth as a collegiate head coach. He guided the Chanticleers to a 26-5 overall record and a 15-3 conference record, both marks a school record and good for Coastal’s fifth-ever Big South regular-season title. The Chants also had a plus-15 overall and a plus-10 Big South turnaround, which ties a Big South record for turnarounds from the previous campaign. Ellis has a 662-389 overall record and a 50-40 record in his three years as the Chants’ mentor. Ellis has now been named Coach of the Year in four different conferences (Sun Belt, ACC, SEC, Big South) and becomes Coastal’s fifth Big South Coach of the Year and first since 1999-2000.

Harris earns his second straight First Team selection after averaging 14.8 points and 9.6 rebounds a game this season. He has rewritten the record books at Coastal, as he is the all-time leader in rebounds, blocked shots, field-goal percentage and games played. He also is the only player in Big South history to score over 1,300 points and grab 1,100 rebounds. Harris scored a season-high 24 points twice this year in wins over Bridgewater and UNC Asheville. He also pulled down 19 rebounds in a win over Charleston Southern Feb. 20. He becomes the Chants’ ninth multiple first-team All-Big South honoree and is the first to do it since Jack Leasure in 2005-06 and 2007-08.

Gray earns First Team honors in his first season on the court for the Chants. He is averaging 14.1 points and 4.7 rebounds for Coastal and is shooting at a 50.9 percent clip. He hit the game-winning jumper with five seconds left in a 58-57 win over UNC Asheville and scored a career-high 31 points in a win against Savannah State. Gray had a double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds in a win at VMI and scored 24 points twice in wins against Georgia Southern. He has scored in double figures 22 times this season and is third on the team with 24 blocked shots.

Greenwood becomes Coastal’s 12^th All-Freshman Team honoree as he has averaged 8.9 points and 3.3 assists for the Chants this season. Greenwood is shooting 48.8 percent from the field and is averaging three rebounds a contest. He earned Big South Freshman of the Week honors four times this season and scored a season-high 20 points to go along with five assists, four steals and three rebounds in a win over VMI Dec. 3. He had a block of an attempted go-ahead three-pointer at UNC Asheville to give the Chants the one-point win and had 17 points in wins over Indiana State and Gardner-Webb. Greenwood is ninth in the Big South in assists and third in assist-to-turnover ratio.

Johnson, who has a 3.56 grade-point-average in business management, is averaging 7.8 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.6 assists this season for the Chanticleers. He is shooting 44.1 percent from the field and 71.7 percent from the free-throw line. Johnson had a career-high 19 points in the win over Cornell College and scored 14 points in the win over Winthrop Jan. 2. He currently is ninth all-time on Coastal’s career assists list and had seven assists in the win over VMI Feb. 27. He will graduate from Coastal with a degree in business management in the Spring of 2010.

In other specialty awards, Radford’s Art Parakhouski won the Player of the Year, Charleston Southern’s Jeremy Sexton was the Freshman of the Year, Winthrop’s Mantoris Robinson received the Defensive Player of the Year and Radford’s Phillip Martin was named the Scholar-Athlete of the Year.

Top-seeded Coastal Carolina will start the 2010 Big South Men’s Basketball Championships Tuesday, March 2 against eighth-seeded VMI at Kimbel Arena. Tip off is scheduled for 7 p.m.

2009-10 MEN’S BASKETBALL ALL-CONFERENCE

First-Team All-Conference

Artsiom Parakhouski, C, Sr., Radford

Joseph Harris, F, R-Sr., Coastal Carolina

Nick Barbour, G, Soph., High Point

Chad Gray, F, R-Jr., Coastal Carolina

Jamarco Warren, G, Jr., Charleston Southern

Second-Team All-Conference

Joey Lynch-Flohr, F, Sr., Radford

Austin Kenon, G, Jr., VMI

Kyle Ohman, G/F, Sr., Liberty

Mantoris Robinson, G/F, R-Sr., Winthrop