Former Ohio State forward Seth Towns’ eventful college basketball journey continued on Friday when he was hired to serve as an assistant coach at his alma mater Harvard.
“We are more than thrilled to welcome Seth back to Harvard Basketball and to the Harvard community as a whole,” longtime Harvard head coach Amaker said in a statement. “Seth embodied our program’s ideals as a ‘Scholar and Baller’ as a student-athlete and has demonstrated tremendous resiliency and perseverance throughout his career.
“Rather than follow the paths of others, Seth has always gone where there is no path and left a trail. We look forward to the impact he will have on our current student-athletes.”
Towns, whose injury-riddled career spanned a rare eight seasons, played for the Crimson from 2016-18 before missing the 2018-20 seasons due to a knee injury. He averaged 15.9 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 0.8 steals per contest for Amaker’s team, earning Ivy League Player of the Year and AP Honorable Mention All-American honors as a sophomore in 2017-18.
Towns, a Columbus native and standout at Northland High School, then returned to his hometown to play for Ohio State as a graduate student in 2020. The forward played 25 games for the Buckeyes in 2020-21, helping them earn a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament by averaging 3.8 points and 2.2 rebounds off the bench. But his Ohio State career was cut short due to a recurring back injury that forced him to miss the entire 2021-22 season and medically retire from basketball in September 2022.
Towns’ Ohio State career also included a notable off-the-court moment when he was detained by Columbus police in May 2020 during a protest held days after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. Towns was never arrested and released by Columbus police shortly after being detained.
Towns’ medical retirement was brief, however, as the forward decided in 2023 to return to college basketball and transfer to Howard for his eighth college basketball season. The 26-year-old forward was a key contributor for the Bison, helping lead the program to a MEAC championship and NCAA tournament appearance by averaging 14.2 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game.
Now, the former Buckeye Towns will look to start a new chapter in his long college basketball journey on the sidelines for Harvard, who is coming off a 14-13 season in Amaker’s 18th season as head coach.
Harvard will begin its season Nov. 8 at Navy.
