NCAA Basketball: Examing potential options of grad transfer Seth Towns

Syracuse Orange

Finding playing time could be an issue for Towns on some of these options but certainly not for Syracuse. Especially since the team just lost several players to the transfer portal in the past couple of days. Making things direr for them in the scoring department, leading scorer Elijah Hughes could very well declare – and stay in the NBA Draft after an exceptional junior campaign.

Towns could find himself starting with a 30 mpg average next season on an ACC team. The question, however, will be whether he can play in the 2-3 zone after dealing with knee issues for the past couple of years. He could be a target for opposing defenses if his lateral quickness isn’t up to par but his scoring ability would be badly needed for an Orange squad now looking for rotation pieces once again.

Virginia Cavaliers

Speaking of scoring needs, Virginia always could use some more in its offense, particularly since they’ll be losing two of their key pieces, Mamadi Diakite and Braxton Key to graduation. It leaves junior guard Kihei Clark as the only solid returning scoring option, although there are already a pair of newcomers set to fill those spots.

Jabri Abdur-Rahim is a top-40 small forward prospect joining the team next season, while Marquette transfer Sam Hauser (12.7 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 2.2 apg) is coming off a redshirt season. His game and Towns are fairly similar and would be great assets to the Cavaliers. On the defensive end, the former Harvard Player of the Year wouldn’t have any potential weaknesses exposed under Tony Bennett’s system.

While Towns may have to play back-fiddle to Hauser for a year off the bench, he’d have a major role to play in his own senior season. And having a full year to literally get his legs under him may be a better option than going full-out this upcoming campaign. Some team is going to land a former Conference Player of the Year winner for the next two years. Who will it be?