LaPhonso Ellis

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LaPhonso Darnell Ellis (born May 5, 1970 in East St. Louis, Illinois) is a former professional basketball player. He was outstanding high school basketball player at East St. Louis Lincoln High School where he lead the Lincoln Tigers to two straight Illinois Class AA boys' championships in 1987 and 1988. Although many thought he would attend Illinois some questionable recruiting tactics came into play by Notre Dame. LaPhonso ended up attending the University of Notre Dame. This later turned out to be a poor decision. LaPhonsos Notre Dame squads only qualified for the tournament once his freshman year. Laphonso would have been the missing piece for a final four squad of University of Illinois since they were only missing a solid post presence. He was one of four captains of the 1991-92 Notre Dame team. Throughout his career, he scored 1,505 career points, and averaged 15.5 points per game to earn school rankings of 12th and 22nd, respectively He has recorded 200 career blocks, a school record. He ranks third on the school’s career rebounding list with 1,075, and eighth on the career rebounding average list, with 11.1 rpg . He led the '91-92 team in scoring (17.7 ppg), rebounding (11.7 rpg), field goal percentage (.631) and blocked shots (2.6 bpg). He paced Notre Dame in blocked shots in each of his four seasons, the only player in school history to do so. He was the fifth overall selection in the 1992 NBA Draft by Denver.