It has been just over two weeks since the St. John’s basketball team landed a commitment out of the transfer portal but if you asked a Red Storm fan it felt like two years.
After days of visits and speculation, the Johnnies have landed Stanford transfer Oziyah Sellers to bolster its reshaped backcourt, joining Arizona State’s Joson Sanon.
Sellers saw his numbers explode during his junior season with the Cardinal, starting 25 games this season and averaging 33.1 minutes and 13.7 points per game on 45.1-percent shooting from the floor and 40.1-percent from 3-point range.
The combination of size, listed at 6-foot-5, and statistics were exactly what St. John’s was looking for in order to strengthen its shooting percentages after sustaining offensive droughts this season.
Oziyah Sellers started his career at USC where he was teammates with St. John’s center Vince Iwuchukwu. After only being on the court for 5.2 minutes per game as a rookie, he saw an increase to 14.3 minutes per contest during his sophomore season and opted to leave the program following the departure of head coach Andy Enfield to SMU and the hiring of Eric Musselman.
In the switch to the ACC after his transfer, Sellers was not scared of the bright lights in the conference despite the struggles of some teams in the league. He posted 20 points on the road against Clemson and 22 points in a near upset of Louisville in the ACC Tournament.
He becomes the third player to commit to St. John’s this offseason, joining Sanon and Providence forward Bryce Hopkins.
“Oziyah Sellers had a breakout junior season at Stanford…giving the Cardinal offense some much-needed transition pop,” Isaac Trotter, a college basketball analyst at 247Sports said in his scouting report of the newest Johnnie.
“Sellers can create offense for himself in a pinch, but the 6-foot-5, 190-pound guard is best-suited playing around a star as a secondary scorer.”
St. John’s is continuing its pursuit of guards in the transfer portal with Princeton’s Xaivian Lee and North Carolina’s Ian Jackson. The Red Storm also hosted 4-star high school recruit Acaden Lewis on a visit this week after his decommitment from Kentucky.