Oakland basketball star Townsend to declare for the 2024 NBA draft
Trey Townsend, the Horizon League Player of the Year and man now affectionately known as “Mr. Oakland” due to his lifelong ties to the program, has decided to forgo his final year of eligibility and enter his name into the 2024 NBA draft, a source with knowledge of the situation told the Free Press on Thursday.
Townsend can still return to college next season, as long as he withdraws from the draft by June 16.
“He will get to do some work for some teams, show them what he can do,” one source was told of Townsend’s next steps. “Not sure if he’s NBA, he could be G League and get a contract, but then he has to decide.
“If he opts out, he will go into the (transfer) portal and see how much he’s worth, what he can get, where there’s a fit and go from there.”
Townsend was a relative unknown nationally less than one month ago, before he burst onto the scene in the Horizon League championship game and the NCAA tournament. He is the son of Skip Townsend, one of longtime coach Greg Kampe’s first recruits to Rochester in the late 1980s, and Nicole Leigh, who also played basketball during her collegiate days for the Grizzlies.
Townsend, who averaged a career-high 17.3 points and 5.9 rebounds per game this season, put up a career-high 38 points with 13 rebounds in that title game against Milwaukee to earn tournament MVP, then continued his legendary story the following weekend.
Though Jack Gohlke became the folk hero when 14-seed Oakland upset 3-seed Kentucky last Thursday at PPG Paints Arena in downtown
Pittsburgh, there’s no question it wouldn’t have happened without Townsend. The 6foot-6 power forward put up 17 points and 12 rebounds, and held his own against Kentucky’s front court of Tre Mitchell and Zvonimir Ivisic.
He followed that up with an even bigger performance, when he scored 30 points and grabbed 13 rebounds in a heartbreaking Round of 32 loss to N.C. State in overtime, 79-73.
Oakland on Thursday morning had a season-ending ceremony at the O’Rena, and Kampe and players, including Townsend, Gohlke, Chris Conway and DQ Cole, thanked fans for their support.
A return to Oakland is unlikely, given the school simply lacks the same funds to match what a Power-5 program can offer Townsend
should he return to college.
Both of the top programs in his home state have come up as potential transfer destinations for the Oxford native — Michigan needs to put nearly a full roster together, and Michigan State and coach Tom Izzo just saw this past season what happens after the program was not very active in the portal. Do not be surprised if more schools come calling.
“It won’t just be Michigan and Michigan State,” the source said. “I mean, you saw what he did against Kentucky, then N.C. State, 30 and 13? He beat the crap out of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kentucky called, too.”
The NBA draft combine is May 13-19 in Chicago. The draft is June 26-27 in Brooklyn, New York.