Towns, 25, in portal; last played for OSU in ’20-21

Jeff Borzello, ESPN

• Personnel WriterMay 15, 2023, 09:43 PM ET Close Basketball recruiting insider.
• Joined ESPN in 2014.
• Graduate of University of Delaware.A familiar name appeared in the NCAA

  transfer website Monday night: Seth Towns, the previous Ivy League Gamer of the Year who has actually missed 4 of the past 5 seasons with injuries.Towns, who will be 26 years old at the start of the next college basketball season, hasn’t played because 2020-21. He began his profession in 2016 at Harvard, where he became one of the best mid-major players in college basketball. Towns balanced 12.5 points as a freshman and after that set up 16.0 points and 5.7 rebounds as a sophomore, shooting 44.1%from 3-point variety en route to being named Ivy League Gamer of the Year.Editor’s Picks

1 Related Towns missed the next two seasons with knee injuries but went into the portal as a graduate transfer in 2020. He received interest from a long list of high-major programs, but the Columbus, Ohio, native ultimately devoted to Ohio State.

“I’m coming home,” Towns said at the time. “From a basketball viewpoint, it makes good sense for me. Certainly, there’s no place like house. Coach [Chris] Holtmann and I have actually developed a really excellent relationship; I trust him wholly. It’s excellent. It’s been my youth dream. I have a painting of me in an Ohio State jersey on my childhood bedroom wall, even still. I got that when I was 2 years old.”

Towns wound up playing in only 25 games for the Buckeyes, averaging 3.8 points in 2020-21 before missing out on the following season with a back injury. Last September, Towns announced he was stepping away from basketball due to the many injuries he had suffered over the previous couple of years.

“It features sadness and faith that I need to announce I am stepping away from Ohio State and Team 124, which I will not be playing this season,” he stated. “After a couple of setbacks this summer and some hard conversations with my coaches and medical workers, it has actually ended up being clear that my body is not in a position to withstand a full Big Ten season. I share with a number of you the aggravation of not having actually been able to contend at the level I am capable of, or at least something near to it.”

While next season will be his 8th in college basketball, Towns might have up to 2 years of eligibility remaining– depending upon the number of years he qualified for a medical redshirt. He has played just three overall seasons at Harvard and Ohio State, and one was 2020-21, which the NCAA considers to be the COVID-impacted campaign.