Andy Enfield explains why Oziyah Sellers played key minutes

USC hoops struggled to start the year and struggled to start conference play, but are rounding into pretty decent form the last couple weeks. The Trojans’ latest positive performance came over the weekend, as Andy Enfield’s club triumphed on the road over a solid Arizona State team. It’s arguably USC’s most impressive win of the year — and it’s definitely their best result away from home.

The win featured a sort-of unlikely hero in freshman wing Oziyah Sellers. He wasn’t a star by any means, but he came off the bench and gave USC nine solid minutes after not playing that many since the second game of the season. In those nine minutes, Sellers contributed solid defense and hit a huge shot right before the halftime break.

After the game, Coach Enfield raved about Sellers and was happy to see the youngster excel when his opportunity finally came.

“He’s getting much better. He doesn’t turn the ball over. He makes shots. His defense has improved,” Enfield reviewed of Sellers in the postgame. “He played — I thought he played terrific defense for us tonight when we played man and zone in the game. And he made that big shot at the end of the first half. So he gave us good minutes.”

Perhaps that solid spurt of play in a huge road win will earn Oziyah Sellers more minutes down the road. But credit Enfield for having the guts to rely on a true freshman in a true road environment in a game he considered a must-win.

“We knew we had to win this game,” Enfield added on the victory. “We didn’t play well at Arizona (who they lost to earlier in the week, 81-66). We’re a very good defensive team and I thought our defense wasn’t good enough against Arizona. We didn’t do what we needed to do. Tonight, it was very businesslike and they did what they had to do. They guarded. They made shots. The first 36 minutes was as good as we’ve played all season.”

Enfield would have still liked to see better execution down the stretch, but he’s not complaining about a win. USC put together arguably their best performance of the season and has a little bit of momentum here in Pac-12 play.