CHICAGO -- Chicago State basketball coach Bo Ellis was fired Wednesday after winning just 23 games in five years at the school.

Assistant Kevin Jones was hired as interim coach for the rest of the season. Chicago State's next game is Saturday at Southern Utah.

''I appreciated all the efforts and hard work of Bo Ellis in trying to rebuild the basketball program at Chicago State,'' athletic director Al Avant said in a statement.

''(But) he was not able to get the results or get the program to where he wanted it to go.''

Ellis, an All-American and the captain of Marquette's 1977 NCAA championship team, was 23-104 at Chicago State. The Cougars are 3-15 this season and have lost their first four Mid-Continent Conference games.

Ellis' best year with the Cougars was in 1999-2000, when Chicago State went 10-18. The 10 victories were the Cougars' best since 1988-89, their first year in Division I.

Jones is in his first year at Chicago State. He was the associate head coach at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis from 1994-2001, and an assistant at Western Illinois from 1989-94.