What can Seth Towns still give the Ohio State basketball team?

The Ohio State basketball team is having some massive roster turnover from a season ago. The only players who played significant minutes last year that will be returning for the upcoming season are Eugene Brown and Zed Key. Everyone else will be relatively new.

Seth Towns announced today that he will be returning to the Buckeyes for his 7th college season. He missed all of last year after he had a back injury keep him out. He has missed a large part of the last two seasons with Ohio State because of back and knee injuries.

It’s great to be getting him back, but what can he still give the Buckeyes? He can’t be trusted to stay healthy. Even if he is, there’s no way he’s going to be what he was when he was at Harvard. The injuries have slowed him down too much. We saw that in his one semi-healthy year with the Bucks.

In the one season he’s been on the floor for the Ohio State basketball team, Towns averaged only 3 points per game off the bench. He only played about 11 minutes a game. He only shot 42% from the field and only took a measly three shots a game.

I don’t think Towns can bring much to this team, unfortunately. I’d like nothing better for him to be completely healthy and for him to be the kind of player that he was with Harvard. But with torn-up knees and a surgically repaired back, there’s not much he can do at this point.

What Towns does bring is leadership. He will be by far the oldest player on the roster. He can help the young guys handle playing big-time college basketball. This is a talented crop of freshmen coming up, so Towns’ best value might be mentorship.

We’ll see if he can give the Buckeyes anything on the floor. I really hope he can.