Coastal Carolina basketball coach Cliff Ellis, who also coached at Auburn and South Alabama in a 5-decade career, will reportedly announce his retirement on Wednesday.

Ellis, who turned 78 on Tuesday, is the winningest active coach in the sport with 829 victories over 45 seasons. The Chanticleers are 3-5 this season after a 110-46 win over NAIA opponent St. Andrews on Monday.

A Florida native, Ellis began his coaching career in the junior-high and high school ranks in the late 1960s. He was hired as the head coach at Cumberland (Tenn.) Junior College in 1972 despite no college playing or coaching experience, then took over the South Alabama program in 1975.

Ellis won 171 games in nine years with the Jaguars, and remains the school’s second-winningest basketball coach after Ronnie Arrow. He led USA to three Sun Belt regular-season championships and two trips each to the NCAA tournament and NIT, and was also athletics director for a time.

He then went to Clemson, where he won 177 games in 10 seasons. The Tigers reached the NCAA tournament three times during his tutelage, including an ACC championship and a berth in the Sweet 16 in 1990.

From there, Ellis went to Auburn, coaching the Tigers to 186 victories (second-most in program history after Joel Eaves) in 10 seasons. His 1998-99 team went 29-4 and won the SEC, achieving a No. 1 national ranking in a season that ended in a Sweet 16 berth.

Two of Ellis’ other Auburn teams also reached the NCAA tournament, but he was fired after a 14-14 finish in 2003-04. After two years out of coaching, he was hired at Coastal Carolina in 2007.

In 16-plus seasons at Coastal, Ellis has 297 victories. The Chanticleers reached the NCAA tournament and NIT twice each under his guidance, and won a pair of Big South conference titles before joining the Sun Belt in 2016.

A member of both the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame and the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame, Ellis has been his conference’s coach of the year six times. He was named National Coach of the Year by the Associated Press while at Auburn in 1999.

Ellis ranks 10th all-time among Division I men’s basketball coaches in victories, one behind Jim Phelan (830 wins at Mount St. Mary’s). Also ahead of him are Mike Krzyzewski (1,202), Jim Boeheim (1,015), Bob Huggins (935), Jim Calhoun (920), Roy Williams (903), Bob Knight (902), Dean Smith (879) and Adolph Rupp (876).

Assistant coach Benny Moss is expected to take over as interim coach at Coastal Carolina, which hosts Wofford on Saturday.