6-foot-10 forward Carey Booth’s one-year tenure at Illinois has come to an end after the Notre Dame transfer elects to spend another college basketball offseason in the transfer portal

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Staff Writer

March 27, 2025

The one-year experiment of Carey Booth at Illinois has come to an end.

The 6-foot-10 forward, who arrived at Illinois as a transfer from Notre Dame, has elected to enter the transfer portal for the second consecutive year.

Booth’s father, Calvin, is the career blocked shots leader at Penn State along with being the 1998 Big Ten Conference Defensive Player of the Year selection, a 10-year veteran in the National Basketball Association and is now general manager of the Denver Nuggets. Carey Booth will be finding a new home after playing just a total 110 minutes in 21 games in the 2024-25 season. Booth played a total of one minute in the Illini’s final six games and did not participate in either of the Illini’s NCAA Tournament games in Milwaukee.

In the 21 games where Booth did receive game action, he totaled just 26 points, 22 rebounds and four blocks.

Booth arrived at Illinois as a transfer from Notre Dame where he played in all 33 games of the 2023-24 season as a true freshman that included 19 starts and a average of 19.9 minutes per of game action. Booth was seen by the Illini coaching staff as potential valuable piece out of the transfer portal after averaging 6.1 points and 4.5 rebounds in Atlantic Coast Conference play in his first season of college basketball under Irish head coach Micah Shrewsberry’s first season.

However, Booth was buried on the Illini’s bench during the 2024-25 season behind incoming players Tomislav Ivisic, freshman sensation Morez Johnson and 22-year-old transfer Ben Humrichous.

The most impact Booth had in a game for the Illini was likely in the 112-67 season-opening win over Eastern Illinois on Nov. 4 when he recorded six points on 2-for-5 shooting from 3-point range, five rebounds and a block in his debut in Champaign-Urbana.

Booth was a No. 61 by ESPN.com in the 2023 recruiting class after he played three seasons at Cherry Creek High School in Colorado before enrolling at top-ranked prep school Brewster Academy in New Hampshire for senior year. Booth averaged 10.6 points and 7.7 rebounds in 22 games as a senior in high school while leading Brewster to a 35-6 overall record.

The next program will Booth’s third in as many years and he will have two years of eligibility remaining after this latest move.