El Ellis shares what caused Louisville's scoring droughts vs. Virginia

On Wednesday night, El Ellis and the Louisville Cardinals nearly pulled off a massive upset against the Virginia Cavaliers. However, scoring droughts helped contribute to Louisville coming up short in their bid.

After the game, Ellis explained what caused these scoring droughts.

“I mean, that happens when you’re playing Virginia,” El Ellis said. “They guard very well. They guard the whole shot clock.”

Ellis praised the Cavaliers for their ability to play defense and pointed out that this is something they do most teams. To combat it, you simply need to stay aggressive.

“They really help each other. They’re really in gaps and they’re very physical. So, and they do that to a lot of teams. A lot of teams, when they play Virginia they go on a spurt and they don’t score for a while, but you just got to stay aggressive and when we got them in foul trouble and we were going to be able to shoot two free throws every time, we just continued to try and be aggressive and get in the lane.”

El Ellis scored 21 points against Virginia, but it wasn’t enough with Louisville losing 61-58. This season, he’s averaging 17.6 points per game.

With the loss, Louisville fell to just 3-23 on the season and 1-14 in the ACC. The Cardinals’ next game is against Clemson on Saturday.

El Ellis was encouraged by Louisville’s effort

This has been an incredibly difficult season for the Louisville Cardinals. However, the Virginia game was encouraging to El Ellis.

“It just shows that we can compete with anybody. That team is supposed to be one of the best teams in the country and we went down to the wire with them both games,” said Ellis.

“I just feel like the guys should feel very good about that. We just gotta keep our confidence and look forward to the next game.”