Back in the spring, Stanford men’s basketball landed a commitment from USC transfer guard Oziyah Sellers. Sellers played two seasons at USC and has two years of eligibility remaining. In his sophomore season with the Trojans last year, Sellers averaged 5.2 points, 0.9 rebounds, 0.6 assists, and 0.3 steals per game on 46.7% shooting from the field, 42.9% shooting from 3-point range, and 82.6% shooting from the foul line. After barley seeing the floor at just 5.2 minutes per game as a freshman, Sellers became a legit rotation player as a sophomore, averaging 14.3 minutes per game.
Listed at 6’5”, 185 pounds, Sellers projects to play out on the wing at shooting guard/small forward. He’s got a nice body frame and has good physical tools to work with.
Sellers was rated a 3-star recruit out of high school by Rivals and is now listed by Rivals as a 3-star transfer. He held offers from Arizona State, Creighton, Mississippi State, TCU, Washington, Washington State, and several mid major programs such as San Jose State and Utah State.
Stanford head coach Kyle Smith recruited Sellers while he was at Washington State and is really familiar with him. That obviously played a real role here. Those kind of relationships are always key and you never know when they’ll come in handy now that we live in such a transfer portal heavy world.
"Oziyah is someone I have known since he was in the eighth grade. I have been following his career, and I am excited to coach him so he can reach the heights that I know he is capable of," Smith said in the team release. "During his time spent at USC, he displayed an ability to play all three perimeter positions offensively, and he has the talent, size and athleticism to guard any perimeter player."
"Obviously my shooting," Sellers told CardinalSportsReport.com about what he'll bring to the program. "I feel like that's going to be a big thing, but something I've been really improving is just my defense, energy. Overall, I feel like with this team my energy is going to be something that's kinda needed for this team to be good. So energy. And then just being a better leader. Now that I have a little experience under my belt. Going into this year. Just being a better leader on that aspect. Things like that."
Playing his high school ball at Southern California Academy, Sellers was teammates with Stanford small forward Jaylen Thompson who also played there. So that’s another person on the team who he is familiar with. The chance to reunite with Thompson should be a lot of fun for him.
Ultimately, Oziyah Sellers appears to be a nice pickup for Stanford. He’s got some experience at the college level and made improvements from his freshman season to sophomore season. It’ll be fun to see what he does at Stanford and how he grows under the coaching of Kyle Smith.
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