Overtime Elite star brings championship team connections to South Carolina

In March, three members of Lamont Paris and South Carolina’s 2025 recruiting class walked into Overtime Elite Arena with a shot to take the league’s fourth championship home.

Eli Ellis went on to walk off the championship for the YNG Dreamerz with a buzzer-beating three-pointer. Afterwards, he packed his things and brought his championship and two teammates with him to South Carolina.

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Ellis is joined by fellow members of OTE’s YNG Dreamerz, Hayden Assemian and Abu Yarmah, in South Carolina. The trio of freshmen also played together at Moravian Prep in Hudson, NC, for Ellis’s father.

“I think a few times we just look around and we’re like, ‘Oh wow. We’re all on the same college team. We just played high school, and now we’re all together,” Ellis told GamecockCentral. “It doesn’t feel real sometimes.”

Of the three Overtime Elite veterans, Ellis is the biggest star. In addition to the strong following he has amassed on social media, the freshman guard was a two-time MVP of the league and its all-time leading scorer.

By the time Ellis chose South Carolina, Assemian had already committed to the Gamecocks. The three-star prospect committed to the Gamecocks in September 2024 and was Paris’s first commit of the 2025 recruiting cycle.

Assemian was a recent addition to the Moravian Prep group. Before joining the school and YNG Dreamerz in OTE in 2024, the Greenville, SC native attended Powdersville High School. Assemian also briefly attended Legacy Early College during his sophomore year of high school.

During his championship run with Ellis and Yarmah, Assemian averaged just over five points, nine rebounds and two blocks per game.

Going through that season knowing he’d have his guys with him at South Carolina also made it more special.

“Knowing that we’d have another year, or two, three, maybe four just being able to play with each other again and grow,” Assemian told GamecockCentral. “It was cool just playing jokes with them.”

Assemian and Ellis were long signed with South Carolina when their championship game came around in March. What they didn’t expect was for Yarmah to announce he’s also coming to Columbia, SC, a month later.

Yarmah committed to the Gamecocks in April after flipping from High Point. The 6-foot-7 forward previously signed with the Panthers, but reopened his commitment after head coach Alan Huss left to be an assistant and the head coach-in-waiting at Creighton.

Yarmah averaged 13.5 points per game, including eight rebounds and an assist during their championship run in 2024-25. He also played with Ellis during the 2023-24 season, averaging 10 points per game with the YNG Dreamerz. Before joining Moravian Prep, Yarmah played for Patrick Henry High School, where the three-star prospect scored over 1000 points.

“We didn’t expect him to come join us. Things happened, and he ended up being a Gamecock,” Ellis said of Yarmah’s commitment. “It’s special.”

The group playing for and winning a championship together now brings a new perspective to a Gamecock roster looking to bounce back after a difficult 2024-25 campaign.

“I feel like it was a great experience,” Yarmah told GamecockCentral. “It taught us how culture can take us a long way. How culture can build a different kind of bond to a team.”

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