Seth Towns committing to Howard for eighth hoops season

Seth Towns, the former Ivy League Player of the Year who has missed four of the past five seasons with injuries, announced Friday that he will attend Howard for his eighth season of college basketball.

Towns made his decision known in a post on social media, writing he was “so blessed.”

Towns, who will be 26 years old at the start of the next college basketball season, hasn’t played since 2020-21. He told The Columbus Dispatch on Friday that he has changed his outlook on basketball.

“I think I have restructured my relationship with basketball,” Towns told the newspaper. “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.”

He began his career in 2016 at Harvard, where he won Ivy Player of the Year as a sophomore in 2017-18 after averaging 16.0 points and 5.7 rebounds per game while shooting 44.1% from 3-point range. Towns would miss the next two seasons with knee injuries before entering the portal as a graduate transfer in 2020. The Columbus, Ohio, native ultimately committed to hometown Ohio State.

Towns ended up playing in only 25 games for the Buckeyes, averaging 3.8 points in 2020-21 before missing the following season with a back injury. In September, Towns announced he was stepping away from basketball due to the numerous injuries he had suffered over the past few years.

He could have up to two years of eligibility at Howard, depending on how many years he qualifies for a medical redshirt. He has played only three total seasons at Harvard and Ohio State, and one was 2020-21, which the NCAA considers to be the coronavirus-impacted campaign.

Howard advanced to the NCAA tournament last season for the first time since 1992, finishing 22-13 overall and winning the MEAC regular-season and tournament championships. Coach Kenny Blakeney has made it a priority to upgrade the Bison’s talent level since taking over in 2019, with Towns the latest example.