LOS ANGELES — At long last, they’d snapped the losing streak, and USC coach Andy Enfield was suddenly in jolly spirits after lightly torching his group at the postgame podium two nights earlier. And the lucky – or perhaps unlucky – target of his good humor was sophomore Oziyah Sellers.
For yet another night across a month-long breakout, Sellers had shouldered increased shot-making responsibilities, scoring 12 points in a blowout of Oregon State on Saturday. That wasn’t Enfield’s focus, though. The young man could score. That’s why they recruited him, Enfield said later.
“He actually had three rebounds tonight – so, you know, first three rebounds of his career, so it was pretty impressive,” Enfield cracked postgame, taking a pause and then doubling down in the middle of a subsequent question. “It fell into his hands, by the way.”
He tripled down, later, on another question about Sellers: they were his first three rebounds “since grade school,” actually. And after practice on Monday, Sellers broke into a full-bore grin when asked about Enfield’s ribbing.
“Andy, he makes his jokes,” Sellers smiled. “That’s pretty funny.”
Ah, that old saying, though: behind every joke is a shred of truth, or however it goes. Sellers’ profile in high school at Southern Cal Academy, through recruitment, was a shooter. He didn’t play much in 25 games during his freshman year at USC, taking a total of 31 shots – 19 of them from 3-point range – because his game hadn’t evolved much. You can’t play at this level as just a shooter, Enfield said after the Oregon State game, unless you’ve got four other players on the court who do everything.
Even now, Sellers pointed down to the opposite end of the court after practice on Monday, he hears the same chatter from opposing benches every game.
Shooter! Shooter! Shooter!
“I still can do a better job,” Sellers said, “so I want to keep proving that.”
Simply put, the sophomore…
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