{"id":55873,"date":"2025-08-03T18:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T18:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/55873\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T18:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T18:12:08","slug":"why-michael-ajayi-is-butlers-most-important-team-transfer-for-2025-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/55873\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Michael Ajayi is Butler\u2019s most important team transfer for 2025-26"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6m\">Things have not exactly gone according to plan for the Bulldogs since Thad Matta returned to campus back in 2022. Over the last three years he\u2019s watched conference rival UConn win a pair of titles while Butler hasn\u2019t been higher than 8th place in the Big East. Including last season\u2019s 15-20 mark, the Bulldogs are clearly struggling and suddenly haven\u2019t been to the NCAA Tournament in seven years.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6p\">As we\u2019ve seen more and more often in this new college basketball world, nearly the entirety of Butler\u2019s roster turned over in the offseason. Lead scorers Jahyml Telfort and Patrick McCaffery graduated, but Pierre Brooks entered the transfer portal and he\u2019s not the only missing piece that Matta may have expected back in 2026. Fortunately it\u2019s not completely starting over, as Finley Bizjack returns for his junior year and likely becomes the new anchor for the backcourt after a good sophomore campaign.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6s\">Incoming freshmen supplement what is a decent transfer class, as five new faces landed with the Bulldogs. Butler added significant frontcourt depth, getting former centers Drayton Jones from South Carolina State and Yohan Traore from SMU. Yame Butler did solid work with Drexel while former Purdue-Fort Wayne guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cbb\/players\/jalen-jackson-4.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jalen Jackson<\/a> was one of the best offensive players in the Horizon League last season.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6v\">We\u2019re looking at the whole story here when we say that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cbb\/players\/michael-ajayi-1.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Michael Ajayi<\/a> is the most important of the new weapons from the portal. A 6-7 wing originally from Kent, Washington, Ajayi played well as a JUCO player at Pierce College in his home state before latching on at the D1 level. As a junior at Pepperdine, Ajayi put up 17.2 points and 9.9 rebounds per game, becoming First Team All-WCC as the league\u2019s top scorer. He transferred to Gonzaga last season and didn\u2019t have the same production, averaging just 6.5 points and 5.4 rebounds.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6y\">While at Pepperdine, Ajayi showcased his talent as a dynamic scorer, rebounder, and defender and it\u2019s exactly this that the Bulldogs are hoping comes to Indianapolis. This program lost a ton of talent across the board and really need Ajayi to play standout basketball, assuming one of the starting jobs at forward. Butler doesn\u2019t need those same exact figures as his time with the Waves, but Matta and company are hoping he can regain some of that momentum after not finding his footing with the Bulldogs.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"71\">The bottom line is that a return to form would go a long way towards getting Butler back competitive in the Big East. Looking at the big picture, it\u2019s hard to call this current Butler team a contender in a conference where teams like UConn, Creighton, Marquette, and St. John\u2019s have shown such brilliance in recent years. However, Ajayi might just be that missing piece that can inspire something here, though it all depends on how this new wing can handle Big East defenses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Things have not exactly gone according to plan for the Bulldogs since Thad Matta returned to campus back&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,398,400,401,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-55873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}