{"id":51962,"date":"2025-08-01T07:05:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T07:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/51962\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T07:05:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T07:05:11","slug":"what-theyre-saying-about-eli-ellis-during-south-carolinas-summer-workouts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/51962\/","title":{"rendered":"What they’re saying about Eli Ellis during South Carolina’s summer workouts"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Carolina will be rolling out an almost entirely new roster this season, and one of the more intriguing players that most will be keeping a close eye on is freshman guard Eli Ellis<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Ellis, the main piece of South Carolina\u2019s high school recruiting class, was a four-star prospect in high school and ranked as the No. 71 overall player in the Class of 2025 by On3. He was a two-time MVP in the Overtime Elite league with the YNG Dreamerz. He led the team to a championship this past season after averaging 32.1 points per game, 6.7 assists and 5.7 rebounds per game.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, 10 newcomers on the team spoke to the media for the first time after practice. Here\u2019s a look at what some of them had to say about Ellis and what they\u2019ve seen watching him this summer.<\/p>\n

Kobe Knox<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a competitor. He\u2019s competitive. I think he\u2019s going to have a great college career. Definitely at the point of position as a freshman coming in, he\u2019s showing confidence and stuff like that in his work. So it\u2019s definitely great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knox on Ellis\u2019 playmaking ability as a scoring guard<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really rare, especially for somebody his size. He\u2019s not scared of getting in the paint, you know, fighting there. He\u2019s a strong, strong defender, too. So it\u2019s been really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ HERE: Notes from South Carolina\u2019s newcomer availability during final week of summer workouts<\/a><\/p>\n

Nordin Kapic<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s my roommate. Yeah, he\u2019s a big fan of me. He\u2019s a good guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kapic on if Ellis has included him in any of his TikTok videos yet<\/p>\n

\u201cNot yet. He doesn\u2019t want to show me some love. He\u2019s scared that I\u2019m gonna take his fans away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meechie Johnson<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t got to share your court with him, but he definitely does some stuff that\u2019s like, dang, I didn\u2019t expect him to do that. Great player, great energy. He\u2019s a dawg. I\u2019d say that\u2019s probably the biggest thing I\u2019ve seen in his game is his competitiveness. So he\u2019s going to be really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson on if seeing Ellis\u2019 playstyle reminds him of himself<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I was a freshman before, and I had those moments, but I think he definitely has a chance in this system with Coach Paris, to show more, probably than what I did my freshman year. So I see things, but he\u2019s definitely on a higher pedestal when it comes to social media and stuff like that, all that. But he\u2019s a competitor, dawg. If there\u2019s anything I see, I probably see that the most is just his competitive nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keep up with all things Gamecocks for just $1 for 7 days\u2014lock in this special offer today!<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime he plays, I\u2019m sure you guys have seen it today, like he\u2019s a fierce competitor. He just feels like he\u2019s the best player on the court. I mean, what teammate would you not want to have on your team like that? He just has that confidence. Confidence is one of the best things you can have as a player, and that\u2019s something that he\u2019s ultimately got. And I see that every time I watch him play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hayden Assemian on getting to play with Eli Ellis and Abu Yarmah in Overtime Elite and now again at South Carolina<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was crazy just knowing that we were going to be here next year, knowing that we had a whole nother year or two, or three, maybe four, just being able to play with each other again and grow. So it was cool just playing jokes with them. I didn\u2019t know who was going to be with us either. So it was cool.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Carolina will be rolling out an almost entirely new roster this season, and one of the more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,398,400,401,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-51962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}