It’s tough to back Brad Sellers down.

After 15 years in pro basketball, the 62-year-old has spent the last decade and a half as the mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio. At 7 feet tall he looks down on most everyone he meets, and he is used to that kind of authority.

But Shyanne Sellers was in sixth grade when she got her dad’s defense to break.

She was already a hoops prodigy — a sprouting, bespectacled competitor whose behind-the-back passes irritated her fundamentals-focused father. But he thought she was pushing boundaries too far when she pressed him to play for the boys travel squad. They argued about it over and over, and he dismissed her each time.

Finally, as they sparred in the family kitchen, Shyanne Sellers asked a question that jarred her dad: “If you don’t let me play with the boys, how am I supposed to get better?”

Brad Sellers recognized something.

“I realized I was putting my fears as a father on her,” he said. “She wasn’t the one who was afraid.”

Instead of fighting his daughter for another round, he capitulated. After the first day of boys practice, Shyanne Sellers returned to the car and said: “Dad, that was OK.” When the team started playing games, she began playing off the bench. After a few weeks, she became a starter.

The next year, the junior high school didn’t let Sellers try out for the boys team. But, from then on, Brad Sellers started letting the youngest of his four daughters follow her own fearlessness.

As Shyanne Sellers’ No. 4-seeded Maryland squad lines up to host Norfolk State in the opening round of the NCAA tournament Saturday, her father expects something special. It’s a daring proposition to give Sellers a challenge. She tends to rise to meet them.

“The door is open for her,” said Brad Sellers, who will make the four-hour drive to see his daughter’s curtain call at Xfinity Center. “She’s going to hold herself accountable. She understands the moment, and she’s going to manifest it.”

The word “fearless” comes up a lot in conversations about Shyanne Sellers, an honorable mention All-American who has risen over four years to become the heartbeat of Maryland’s program. She has relished matchups with Caitlin Clark and JuJu Watkins, playing some of her best games against the best competition. Against Ohio State — the beloved school of her hometown — she is 5-2, the latest of which was a 93-90 overtime win on Senior Day.

She has a flair for comebacks. She scored 21 of Maryland’s 28 fourth-quarter points at Indiana last month in a critical road win that helped bolster the Terps’ hosting résumé.

Before that game in Bloomington, Maryland coaches goaded her that she had never won there in her career. For the longest time, it felt like the prodding hadn’t worked — through three quarters, Sellers had just four points.

“I was thinking, ‘What the hell is she waiting for?’” her mother, Kym Sellers, said. “It gives us a heart attack as a family, but we know, whenever her teammates need her, she likes to respond.”

That’s what those close to the four-year senior are expecting this weekend. The Terps are coming off a 27-point loss in the Big Ten tournament, a game in which Shyanne Sellers had just two points. But Maryland (23-7) has yet to lose consecutive games this season, and the senior is a huge reason.

When the tournament committee revealed Maryland’s seeding — a surprise to many even in College Park — Sellers was asked about the team’s potential redemption.

“Getting two more [games] here means a lot to me, so I don’t take it for granted, and I’m excited to get back out here,” she said. “The Big Ten tournament wasn’t us. We’re walking in with a chip on our shoulder.”

Sellers has had that chip for a long, long time.

Before she pestered her parents to play against boys, she pestered her sisters to play at all. Her older siblings, Sydney, Syarra and Shayla, only brought her along for their sports or to spend time with their friends when told explicitly by their parents.

“She would have to go to work with me because no one wanted her to tag along,” Kym Sellers said. “The way she had to fight back and prove herself, that made her have a lot of toughness.”

The toughness manifested in sports. Shyanne Sellers played soccer, softball and volleyball, a pint-size playmaker who loved being the center of attention long before hitting a late growth spurt. Defense, rebounding, fundamentals — she didn’t have much interest.

“She wanted to do everything that made people ooh and ahh,” Brad Sellers said. “When we told her she was being too flashy, she’d say, ‘They’re always hatin’ on me.’”

However, coming to Maryland forced Shyanne Sellers to adjust. Playing alongside Angel Reese, Ashley Owusu and Diamond Miller, she didn’t need to be a scorer. Coach Brenda Frese needed a defender. That took time to sink in — a 10-minute showing as a freshman in Columbus, in front of her friends and family, was a wake-up call. If she wanted to play, she had to adjust.

It’s funny now to imagine how persuasive the staff had to be to get Sellers to buy into a new role, because ever since, Sellers has reinvented. Some years, she’s been the defensive stopper. Some, the top playmaker and distributor. She’s the only Maryland player ever to notch at least 1,500 points, 500 rebounds and 500 assists.

“Every year, she would just kinda figure it out, what needed to take place,” Frese said. “And that’s just a sign of a player that’s been super versatile and understands finding that niche of what her team needs. And to watch her grow from her junior year and senior year now, and it really becoming her team.”

As Sellers goes, Maryland tends to go this season. But lately she’s been struggling with a sprained knee that the team hopes might have healed with two weeks between games. It’s tough for the family — Kym Sellers said her daughter has been fortunate to avoid injuries for most of her career.

But they also believe she’ll rise above it. They hear a familiar theme from Shyanne Sellers: She’s not afraid.

“I’m excited, nervous, praying that she can really end her college career the way she wants to,” Kym Sellers said. “I tell her that I just believe it’s her time. ‘This is what you live for. This is what you dragged me through a million AAU games for. And this is what you wanted.’”