Butler's Rebuild Starts with Jordan Ellerbee
A deep dive on arguably the Bulldogs' best offseason add, a Philly native who set freshman scoring records at Florida Gulf Coast
When longtime head coach Thad Matta announced his retirement in March following his second stint at Butler, a mass exodus ensued.
Nearly every key contributor from the team departed in the aftermath. Azavier Robinson transferred to UCLA, Evan Haywood landed at Pepperdine, Jackson Keith moved to Davidson, Efeosa Oliogu-Elabor joined George Mason, Finley Bizjack headed to West Virginia, Jaime Kaiser transferred to Richmond, and Jack McCaffery entered the portal. Meanwhile, Michael Ajayi, Drayton Jones, Yohan Traore, Yame Butler, and Jalen Jackson exhausted their eligibility, leaving the program with little continuity entering a new era.
Perhaps the most intriguing dynamic was how the team would replace Bizjack. The rising senior appeared in 98 career games for the Bulldogs, including starts in 61 of 64 contents over the past two years. The high-scoring guard also earned Third Team All-Big East honors this past season, averaging a team-best 17.1 PPG across 34 minutes nightly while being one of the group’s most reliable pieces from both the free-throw (136/160 FT; 85%) and three-point (34.9% 3PT; 68/195) lines.
The departures left first-year head coach Ronald Nored with the daunting task of rebuilding Butler’s roster from the ground up. A university alum (class of 2012) and longtime NBA assistant, he moved aggressively in the portal, landing Eduardo Klafke (Mississippi), Treyson Anderson (North Dakota State), Samis Calderon (Kansas), and Christian Moore (The Citadel), while also adding a strong freshman class headlined by four-star forward/ LSU flip Herly Brutus, local product Baron Walker (Noblesville, Indiana), and international prospects Asim Djulovic (Serbia), Marko Maric (Croatia), and Samu Adler (Finland).
With the roster coming together, there’s one newcomer whose name has yet to be mentioned: Jordan Ellerbee, a Florida Gulf Coast transfer who may have the highest upside of anyone on the roster — potentially all-conference upside.
Before Butler
A 6’4’ guard from Philadelphia, Ellerbee excelled at Saint Joseph’s Prep in his hometown prior to joining the collegiate ranks. He scored over 1,000 points across his four-year high school career and was named the Gatorade Pennsylvania Boys Basketball Player of the Year in 2024-25, averaging 16.3 points, 6.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists, and 1.6 steals per game. He led the Hawks to an 18-6 record and the semifinals of the Philadelphia Catholic League Tournament, for which he earned MVP honors.
On the postsecondary front, Ellerbee committed to Florida Gulf Cost University (Ft. Myers, Florida), where he’d emerge as one of the most efficient freshmen in all the land this past year. Across 34 games played, he made 24 starts, finishing second on the team (and 15th in the Atlantic Sun Conference) in points per game (13.1) while grabbing 3.4 rebounds and dishing out 2.1 assists per contest. He also shot an outstanding 46.7% (161/345) from the field and 35.3% (55/156) from deep, even improving to 38.8% (31/80) from three when facing league foes.
Ellerbee’s 446 total points scored last season were a program record for a freshman. He had five games in which he scored 20 or more points, and exploded for 42 in a 102-100 overtime loss to Kennesaw State on November 26:
Player Profile
What stands out the most for Ellerbee is the efficiency. His 46.7% FG split ranked in the 85th percentile of all Division I players, while his 56.1% shooting on two-point tries was also in the 85th percentile. The Eagles relied on the youngster quite a bit as Ellerbee’s usage rate (24.3%) ranked 84th nationwide.
In comparing past to present, the scoring prowess from Bizjack to Ellerbee somewhat differs from what Butler fans have come to expect from their floor general:
A Free Throw Attempt Rate (FTAr) of 27.2% for Ellerbee in 2025-26 was astonishingly low — further evident by his 3.7 fouls drawn per 40 minutes; he shot just 2.8 free throws per game, converting on 73.4% (69/94 for the year)
Bizjack, meanwhile, was one of the best foul drawers in the nation last year (4.7 FD/40 minutes), with a FT attempt rate of 41.8%, ranking in the 77th percentile and equating to 5.2 tries per game.
There’s also the matter of serving as a true floor general, for which Ellerbee has some work to do. An assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.22 (72 assists to 59 turnovers this past year) will likely be addressed by Nored (497 career assists with Butler) and his staff while they look for the young guard to improve upon his 1.8% steal rate (just 30 steals in 914 minutes played last year).
In this case, such numbers are comparable to Bizjack, whose AST:TO of 1.46 wasn’t markedly better (79 assists to 54 turnovers), and he had an astonishingly low steal percentage (1.3%; 15th percentile) with just 23 thefts while playing over 1,050 minutes.
Ellerbee excelled as a pick-and-roll scorer as a freshman, ranking in the 95th percentile nationally at 1.101 points per possession, while he knocked down nearly 48% of his jump shots last year (91st percentile).
Final Verdict
Nevertheless, the underlying appeal is easy to understand. Guards with the blend of youth, scoring efficiency, and offensive upside which Ellerbee possesses are rarely available for long in this day and age — and less so for programs ushering in a new era. While there are still areas of his game that require refinement, Butler is betting that those shortcomings can be developed over time, and that the flashes he showed as a freshman are indicative of something much larger ahead.
Ellerbee figures to play a significant role at Butler next season, but the pressure on him will be alleviated some by the return of Jalen Jackson (a 19.2 PPG scorer at Purdue Fort Wayne two years ago, who missed all but six games at Butler) and the addition of the talented Samu Adler (who could bring real offensive punch to the backcourt).
How Butler fares in the Big East next season will depend heavily on how quickly its new pieces come together. But in an era where young, efficient lead guards are among the most coveted assets in college basketball, Nored may have already secured the centerpiece for his rebuild.
In Ellerbee, Butler is betting on a dynamic scorer with the tools to evolve into one of the conference’s premier backcourt players.