How can I make Owl carousel render list items as elements?

Owl carousel renders slides as div elements even though I have it inside an unordered list element. How can I get it to render list items?

my HTML:

<ul class="item-grid owl-carousel">
   @foreach (var item in Model)
   {
       <li class="item-box">
            @Html.Partial("_Box", item)
       </li>
    }
</ul>

result:

<ul class="item-grid owl-carousel owl-rtl owl-loaded owl-drag">
    <div class="owl-stage-outer">
         <div class="owl-stage">
             <div class="owl-item active">
                 <li class="item-box">
                /* box */
                </li>
                ...
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
</ul>