Bio

Markell Cox joined the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in June 2024 as their women's basketball head coach. Cox comes to UHSP from Bluefield University (Bluefield, Va.) where he has been the head women's coach for the past two seasons. Bluefield University, like UHSP, competes in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) while the Rams are part of the Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC). The Rams were 4-23 (4-18 AAC) last year and Cox departs Bluefield with a two-year record of 19-37 (18-28 AAC). He led Bluefield to their first overall winning season since 2016-17 with a 15-14 mark in 2022-23.

During his final month at Bluefield, Cox began serving as a coach at the NCAA College Basketball Academy in Rock Hill, S.C. There he selected up to 400 players from the classes of 2025, 2026, and 2027 for the Individual Pathway at women's academies. It was also there that he obtained his USA Basketball Gold Coach license.

Cox offers 12 years of dedicated involvement in collegiate athletics on the NCAA and NAIA levels, including eight years of successful head coaching experience. He boasts skills in navigating the evolving landscape of collegiate athletics, with specific expertise in NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) committee participation while he also served on a national committee for the Women's Basketball Coaches Association representing the AAC as the conference captain. Prior to his two years at Bluefield, Cox spent three seasons as head coach at Cincinnati Christian University (2017-2020). He came to Cincinnati after a two-year stint as Assistant Women's Basketball Coach and Head Women's Golf Coach at Urbana University in Urbana, Ohio. Cox has also had coaching stops in Dayton, Ohio as head coach of the Dayton Lady Hoop Stars U17 (AAU) team, Springfield, Ohio at Clark State Community College where he was the women's head coach and Southeastern Illinois College in Harrisburg, Ill. as the Assistant Women's head coach.

Cox is a native of Memphis, Tenn. and attended the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. He graduated from Middle Tennessee State University with a Bachelor of Science in Physical Education and Business Education in 2013.