The latest on Eli Ellis following South Carolina's loss at Clemson

South Carolina was without one of its highest-minute players in a 68-61 loss to in-state rival Clemson on Tuesday night at Littlejohn Coliseum.

Freshman guard Eli Ellis didn’t suit up for the Gamecocks as he was out with a left ankle sprain, according to a pregame post on the team’s X account. He was seen wearing a boot on his foot, which he seemed to have injured in the previous game against The Citadel last Saturday.

In that game, a Bulldogs player fell to the floor and landed directly on the back of Ellis’ left foot, forcing him to the ground as well. Ellis posted the clip to his TikTok account, stating, “Glad God was watching over me.”

After the loss to the Tigers, head coach Lamont Paris shared some more insight on Ellis’ injury, which he’s currently listed as being day-to-day.

“Eli went through shootaround today, and I personally was not that optimistic,” Paris said. “Just having a sprained ankle, and having someone roll up on my ankle before, I wasn’t that optimistic 24 hours ago that his body would respond the way he needed to compete in this atmosphere and at this level.”

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As Paris mentioned, Ellis did go through the pregame shootaround and looked like he could’ve potentially been ready to play. However, after the shootaround ended, neither Ellis nor Paris felt it was the best idea for him to play if he wasn’t 100 percent.

“He wants to play, of course,” Paris said. “But I said I also didn’t think it would do any good to go out there and play, be a shell of yourself, probably hoping that maybe you can get some things done, not able to move the way you want to, defensively, and then also being at risk of going out there and having something happen again, where now maybe you’re out for another couple of weeks. Why would we do that? So all in all, it just seemed to make sense that he wasn’t going to play.”

With Ellis out, South Carolina was tasked with filling in his 28.2 minutes per game off the bench. The Gamecocks rotated in six backup players, which led to them being outscored by Clemson 41-14 in bench points.

Ellis is averaging 10.2 points on 40.7 percent shooting through 10 games this season. South Carolina will be back in action next Monday, Dec. 22, to take on SC State at Colonial Life Arena. Tip-off will be at 4 p.m. on SEC Network+.

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