Basketball Game Preview: Ellsworth Bearcats vs. Beloit Trojans

Ellsworth is 1-9 against Beloit since February of 2020 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Tuesday. The Ellsworth Bearcats will square off against the Beloit Trojans at 7:30 p.m. Both come into the game bolstered by wins in their previous matches.

Ellsworth will head into Friday's contest on the come-up: they were handed a 32-point loss in their previous outing, but that didn't affect their clutch gene on Friday. They skirted past Republic County 36-33. Given the Bearcats' advantage in MaxPreps' Kansas basketball rankings (they are ranked 129th, while the Buffaloes are ranked 280th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.

Meanwhile, Beloit waltzed into their matchup on Friday with four straight wins... but they left with five. They came out on top against the Cardinals by a score of 43-30. The 43-point effort marked the Trojans' lowest-scoring game of the season, but in the end it didn't matter.

Ellsworth better keep an eye on Eli Johnson. He was instrumental in Beloit's win, putting up 13 points and seven rebounds. The team also got some help courtesy of Brody Litton, who posted four points.

Ellsworth is on a roll lately: they've won three of their last four contests, which provided a nice bump to their 5-3 record this season. As for Beloit, they pushed their record up to 5-2 with the victory, which was their fourth straight at home.

Ellsworth was dealt a bruising 71-39 defeat at the hands of Beloit in their previous matchup back in December of 2024. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Johnson, who went 12 of 13 on his way to 26 points and eight rebounds. Now that Ellsworth knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.