Former Harvard, Ohio State Star Seth Towns to Play Eighth Season at an HBCU

Seth Towns announced on Twitter he will play at Howard University for his eighth year of college basketball.

The forward began his college career at Harvard in 2016, playing two seasons for the Crimson, averaging 14.2 points and 5.0 rebounds and earning the 2017–18 Ivy League Player of the Year. However, Towns battled knee injuries the rest of the way, missing the entirety of the next two seasons.

Ahead of the 2020–21 season, Towns transferred to Ohio State and he played 25 games for the Buckeyes that year. The Columbus, Ohio native averaged just 3.8 points and 2.2 rebounds in 10.8 minutes a game for an Ohio State team that earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament.

Towns was eligible to play the next year, but he missed it entirely with a back injury. He then walked away from the game before last season due to all of his injury issues.

However, with a year of eligibility left, Towns is returning to the court for Howard this year, his eighth at the college level.

The Mecca. So blessed pic.twitter.com/vNkDpYkWnZ

— Seth Towns (@219setty) May 19, 2023

“I think I have restructured my relationship with basketball,” Towns told Adam Jardy of The Columbus Dispatch. “It is much healthier now. I’m not saying I put my entire identity into basketball, but man, it was hard, because that’s kind of the only professional aspiration I’ve had. Everything else was kind of subsidiary to that. Now, I think I’ve released myself from the need to play at whatever level.”

Towns will be 26 years-old for the majority of the 2023–24 season, one of the oldest players in college basketball. He joins a Howard team that went 22–13 last season, earning an NCAA tournament appearance for the first time since 1992.