The Next Generation: Shyanne Sellers is laser-focused on getting to the next level

Shyanne Sellers has repeatedly challenged herself to improve and those improvements have her and Maryland ready to make some serious noise.

During a critical matchup between Maryland and Ohio State in late February, a clip of Maryland head coach Brenda Frese screaming at her versatile wing, 6-foot-2 sophomore Shyanne Sellers, went viral on Twitter. The Terrapins had just allowed the Buckeyes to score 30 points in the third quarter, and Maryland trailed by five points heading into the fourth quarter.

“We’ve gotta dictate on the defensive end! You’ve got to show up!” Frese yelled, pointing at Sellers for emphasis. “You’ve got to show up!”

How did the clip go viral? Sellers herself made it happen, taking responsibility for being better in the process.

https://twitter.com/shyannesellers3/status/1629537752424280064

“I think accountability matters because this shows that you’re willing to take criticism, you’re willing to help your team,” Sellers told me, reflecting on the moment a few weeks later. “Yeah, I wasn’t playing my best. I needed to step up for my team.”

Such maturity is a critical part of the package, perhaps even the carrying tool, that makes Sellers the definitive reason why the Terrapins enter the NCAA Tournament with a legitimate chance to win it all.

Sellers isn’t alone when it comes to Maryland players excelling this season. Wing Diamond Miller is averaging 19.7 points per game while shooting 53.7 percent from 2-point range, a devastating three-level scorer who will be selected in next month’s 2023 WNBA Draft lottery. Abby Meyers, a Princeton graduate transfer, simply replicated the offensive efficiency that made her last year’s Ivy League Player of the Year, this time doing it in the Big Ten. And Faith Masonius, back from an ACL tear that ended her season in 2021-22 after nine games, is the essence of the state of New Jersey packed into a basketball uniform.

But Sellers, still a sophomore, faced a choice last spring: throw in with this trio and keep working to build at Maryland, or join an exodus that included Angel Reese, now starring at LSU, and Ashley Owusu, a guard now on the Virginia Tech roster.

That she made the decision to stay appears obvious in hindsight, once you hear the second part of her answer about that viral moment.

Shyanne Sellers committed to Maryland and is helping carry them to new heights

“I think it’s also important for a coach to do that because you’re not letting anything slide,” Sellers continued. “No matter if they’re starting or not, you’re calling them out on the game that they need to play. And for our team, it just shows I’m willing to take it… So it’s just really huge. And especially if you want to make it far, you have to be willing to take criticism. The coach has to be willing to drill into you a little bit if she wants you to go far and if she cares about you.”

That willingness to work shows up all over Sellers’ stat line this season, following a promising freshman year. She elevated her field goal percentage from 41.4 to 48.2 percent, hitting nearly 36 percent of her 3s.

“In the offseason, I put in a lot of work of just developing a more consistent jump shot and being able to make open shots,” Sellers said. “So that’s what contributed to my percentage going up — but also the change of offense, just a more free-flowing offense this year and a lot of people sharing the ball. I mean, our assist-to-turnover ratio is great.”

She’s right — Maryland is top-20 in the nation in that stat. And Sellers is a big part of that.  Her assist percentage, 22.6, is remarkable for someone who wasn’t Maryland’s primary distributor. And she kept her steal percentage right around 3 percent (on a Maryland team that’s also top-20 nationally in that metric) while doubling her block percentage, showing up defensively, again and again, all year.

So while Sellers’ shot chart is a thing of beauty — note particularly the deep red along the baseline, corner 3 to corner 3 — it is the broad base of skills that already have Sellers high up on 2025 draft boards around the WNBA.

Frese made it clear: that doesn’t happen by accident. It’s why so many Terps, from Kristi Toliver to Alyssa Thomas to Bri Jones to Shatori Walker-Kimbrough all established themselves in the WNBA, with Miller and others soon to join them.

“It is a really important piece and why players come to our program,” Frese said. “We set them up to be ready to graduate, so they can get onto the draft and into the league. And our staff does an incredible job, we spend a lot of time with the player development piece, our practices on the front end and back ends with our player development. It is why I think you do see our players come in and they all improve, and the ones that are able to go on and play are ready for the league.”

When Sellers arrived in College Park, she said Frese told her she needed to improve her defense. Right then and there, Sellers decided her goals would include making all-Big Ten Defensive Team, which she did this season, and ultimately, win Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, a goal now within reach over her final two seasons at Maryland.

That’s the essence of her pinned tweet, too, which didn’t do the numbers her getting yelled at did. It is just a quiet plea to stay true to the work and get better.

The team goals are always foremost in Sellers’ mind. She wants a Final Four, a national championship. That comes by leading, which is what she was doing last April when that tweet went up. A year later, Maryland has more wins than all of last year already, and a pathway to a longer NCAA run than last season’s loss to Stanford in the Sweet 16.

“I think that our fans got a little bit worried with the departures,” Sellers said. “So I think it was just vital for them to trust the process, just what we’re going to do and know that Coach B always has the best intentions. And us, as players, are saying we have the best intentions as well to do the same thing, if not more than last year’s team.

“And you can see that now. Just staying with us and staying the course, we’ve been able to do some tremendous things.”

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