Seth Towns reached the NCAA Tournament for the second time in his eight-year college basketball career with a three-point win over Delaware State in the MEAC Championship on Saturday. He also teased a potential return for a ninth and final season in 2024/25.
Should that happen, Howard’s star forward would be 27 at the conclusion of his career after graduating high school in 2016.
To put his age in perspective, Seth Towns is five months older than Jayson Tatum— who is in the middle of his seventh year with the Boston Celtics. The former three-star recruit was in the same college basketball recruiting class as Markelle Fultz, Lonzo Ball, Bam Adebayo, Miles Bridges and Lauri Markkanen.
It has been a wild journey and it is not done yet!
The Bison will play in the NCAA Tournament’s First Four on Tuesday night against the Wagner Seahawks to earn a No. 16 seed against one-seed North Carolina. Towns will play until they lose, barring injury.
From there, it sounds like he has a decision to make. Will he run it back for year nine?!
Should Towns choose to do so, it would be the final year of a nine-year career.
- 2016/17: 12.3 points per game at Harvard
- 2017/18: Ivy League Player of the Year at Harvard
- 2018/19: Medical Redshirt at Harvard
- 2019/20: Medical Redshirt at Harvard
- 2020/21: Reached NCAA Tournament at Ohio State
- 2021/22: Medical Redshirt at Ohio State
- 2022/23: Took Season Off
- 2023/24: Reached NCAA Tournament at Howard
- 2024/25: ???
Seth Towns is so old.
The 6-foot-9, 230-pound forward committed to Harvard out of high school in 2016 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 2020. However, after being named the Ivy League Player of the Year as a sophomore, a knee injury saw him miss his true junior and senior years.
At that point, Towns hit the transfer portal and landed at Ohio State. He averaged 10.8 minutes per game as a fifth-year junior with the Buckeyes. Back surgery saw him miss the entire 2021/22 season.
Towns graduated from Ohio State with a Master of Science in May of 2022. Although he had been in college for six years and earned two degrees, he had played just three seasons.
On Sept. 4, 2022, Towns announced that he was stepping away from basketball and took off all of last season. However, because of his injury struggles and the blanket waiver granted to all athletes during the 2020 pandemic, he had two years of eligibility remaining.
Towns ultimately announced his comeback back in May and transferred to Howard. The NCAA did not approve his eligibility waiver before the Bison’s first three games of the season but eventually got him on the court.
Now, at 26, Towns is averaging 14.2 points, 6.6 rebounds, 2.5 assists and a steal in 32.3 minutes per game for a Howard team that will hope to beat Wagner in the First Four for a shot at UNC in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament.