Illinois Basketball: Jayden Epps quits on Illini, enters transfer portal

Illinois basketball just lost one of the best players on the team to the transfer portal.

A couple of weeks into the offseason and things seemed to be going okay for the Illini. We were dipping our toe into the transfer portal waters to see who might be interested in filling some holes on the team.

Besides for that, the most important thing was to keep the talent we already had on the roster. Illinois was laced with talented players in the frontcourt and backcourt, and we hadn’t lost a single body to the transfer portal. That was until Tuesday.

In some of the most painful news I have heard in a long time, Illinois guard Jayden Epps announced that he was entering his name into the transfer portal. This one was a bit of a surprise considering how important he was to the program.

It is full speed ahead in the transfer portal for the Illinois basketball team after losing Jayden Epps

Honestly, I don’t understand this move by Epps. It’s not like he came into the Illinois program and rode the pine the entire first year. This kid started in 11 games and was a key cog in what the Illini were doing and would be doing in the future.

This was going to be Epps’ team for the 2023-24 campaign. He was going to start at either the No. 1 or No. 2 guard spot the entire year. Instead, the talented guard is only spending one season in Champaign and then bolting for greener pastures.

While I wish nothing but the best for Epps and his career moving forward, nothing would make me happier as a fan than meeting up against him in some capacity and having Sencire Harris shut him down defensively. Illinois is going to move on from Epps and be stronger than ever.

How are we going to get stronger? It has to come from the transfer portal now. It is all hands on deck at this point. I had Epps projected in my starting lineup, and now he is gone.

Even more so than after losing Kofi Cockburn, I think this is the most important offseason of Brad Underwood’s time at Illinois. While we made the NCAA tournament the past three seasons, Underwood is now challenged with having to reboot the program once again. Landing some key transfer portal players is going to be extremely important. This is where he earns his money.