Ohio State's Seth Towns joins #NotNCAAProperty movement on Twitter

Ohio State graduate transfer Seth Towns has joined other men’s college basketball players in calling awareness to their inability to profit from their name, image and likeness.

Wednesday, one day before the NCAA Tournament’s round of First Four games, Rutgers guard Geo Baker posted a message to Twitter with the hashtag #NotNCAAProperty at 1:42 p.m. Soon thereafter, teammate Ron Harper Jr. followed suit, as did Iowa’s Jordan Bohannon and Michigan’s Isaiah Livers.

March Madness:Ohio State's Seth Towns experiencing 'dream come true' as NCAA Tournament debut looms

The Buckeyes were practicing at Mackey Arena at the time, then had a bus ride back to their team hotel in Indianapolis to rejoin the NCAA’s controlled environment created to hold this year’s tournament amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Upon their return, Towns posted a series of messages to Twitter while using the hashtag.

Towns also responded to one message of criticism he received.

Towns has been an outspoken advocate on a number of issues. He was briefly detained in downtown Columbus last summer during a peaceful protest over the killing of George Floyd. 

Throughout his first season with the Buckeyes, the Harvard graduate has knelt for the playing of the national anthem. He told The Dispatch this week that, in short, he was kneeling because "I would just say this: there’s a long history of oppression in America for Black people as a whole, as a collective, and that’s something very simply that I think not just me but everyone should fight against,"

He also said that while he was focusing on the opportunity to make his NCAA Tournament debut with his hometown school, he was "planning on getting into some really cool stuff but very simply that’s the main message that I want to get across."

ajardy@dispatch.com

@AdamJardy