It's happening. It's really happening.
For the first time as a Buckeye and the first time in more than two and a half years, Seth Towns is playing college basketball. He entered Ohio State's game on Saturday against UCLA at the 1:18-minute mark in the first half.
Now checking in... pic.twitter.com/hIok4nrXQb
— Ohio State Hoops (@OhioStateHoops) December 19, 2020
Towns, a 6-foot-8, 230-pound forward who transferred from Harvard as a graduate earlier this year, hadn't played in a college basketball game since suffering a knee injury in the 2018 Ivy League championship game on March 11, 2018.
The last two seasons, the Columbus native sat out as he underwent multiple knee surgeries during an extended rehabilitation process. But before then, he was an impact player for the Crimson. Towns earned Ivy League Player of the Year for a standout sophomore season during which he averaged 16 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.8 assists in 27.9 minutes per game.
Because of the layoff of more than 1,000 days, head coach Chris Holtmann thinks Towns will need to spend some time knocking off the rust before getting back to his prior form.
“I do think everybody has to understand he's not the same player or athlete right now he was his sophomore year at Harvard,” Holtmann said recently. “That's too much to expect given a young man that's come off two years. He's really worked hard to get back to this point. I think he feels a great amount of satisfaction and getting back at least in the conversation of playing again. But to expect that kind of production right now I think is unrealistic. And he understands that, but I think our fans are going to have to understand that as well.”
Eventually, Holtmann believes, Towns will get back to that 2017-18 sophomore year form when he grabbed the attention of the Ivy League and beyond.
He's certainly not there yet. But on Saturday, he took his first step toward doing so as a Buckeye.
