Former Illinois Basketball Signee Commits to Big Ten Opponent

Former Illinois Basketball Signee Commits to Big Ten Opponent

Former Illinois Basketball signee, Jase Butler, announced on social media that he is committed to the University of Washington. In all, Jase Butler will not have an Illinois basketball uniform on next year, however, he may still have to play in Champaign. Butler asked out of his NLI with Illinois around two weeks ago which set off a string of events. Chester Frazier was the assistant coach who recruited Jase Butler to Illinois. Jase asking to be released from his NLI likely signified that Illinois basketball has officially gone all into the transfer portal. Frazier, known for his grit and development mentality, likely did not agree with this buy-in and probably wanted a team based off of defensive toughness and long-term development.

NEWS: 2024 four-star PG Jase Butler, a former Illinois signee, has committed to Washington, he tells @On3Recruits.https://t.co/cNQzDYORkc pic.twitter.com/Qr1fBbBw5D

— Joe Tipton (@TiptonEdits) April 23, 2024

Clearly, Brad Underwood is not into that as he is going all in on the transfer portal, trying to maximize each year and buying into a more offensive-minded gameplan

The First Domino that fell

After these events, Illinois Basketball’s offseason dominos really started to fall into place. It started with Jase Butler. However, Illinois Basketball went on to land Kylan Boswell and Carey Booth out of the transfer portal. Afterward, Illinois Basketball lost Chester Frazier, Sencire Harris, Amani Hansberry, and Luke Goode. Though all losses have their intrigue, Illinois has recovered nicely after re-hiring Orlando Antigua from John Calipari’s staff.

If Orlando Antigua was able to bring in big-time talent when Illinois was near the bottom of the conference, imagine what he could do now that Illinois Basketball has the most conference wins in the past four years.

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