Illinois' Carey Booth commits to Colorado State in the NCAA Transfer Portal

Ali Farokhmanesh has been on the job for a week as head coach at Colorado State. Now, he has his first addition, a notable one at that, from the NCAA Transfer Portal.

Carey Booth has committed to transfer to Colorado State, On3 has learned. He’ll now be playing an hour north from where his dad works with Calvin Booth, a former college player at Penn State in the late-90s who went on to play a decade in the NBA, being the general manager of the Denver Nuggets.

This is the second transfer for Booth having made stops at Notre Dame as a freshman and then at Illinois as a sophomore this past year. He has averaged 4.4 points and 3.3 rebounds in that collegiate career so far with the Fighting Irish and Fighting Illini. He then played much less in Champaign than he did in South Bend as he posted 1.2 points and 1.0 rebounds in five minutes per game in 21 appearances off the bench for Illinois.

Carey, a native of Englewood, Colorado, played his high school basketball at Brewster Academy in the 2023 class. He was the No. 58 overall recruit there as a four-star prospect. He also rated as the No. 7 center and the No. 2 player out of the state of New Hampshire behind only his teammate in Solo Ball (UConn). That’s according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

Now, per the latest in On3’s 2025 Top Transfer Portal Players, Booth is currently in the Top-150 at No. 143. He’s also rated as the No. 39 PF in the portal.

Colorado State (26-10 – Champion of Mountain West Tournament) is coming off its third appearance in the NCAA Tournament in four years with their first win in March Madness, a 78-70 win upset of No. 5 Memphis before their run ended on a game-winner by No. 4 Maryland, in a dozen years since 2013. That earned Niko Medved, after seven seasons with the Rams, a job with Minnesota. That then led to the simple promotion of Farokhmanesh from their associate head coach to head coach.

With that coaching change, Colorado State has only lost two players to the portal during this cycle, both of which were starters, in Kyan Evans and Jaylen Crocker-Johnson. Booth offsets at least one of those, though, with his commitment on Tuesday.

To keep up with the latest players on the move, check out On3’s Transfer Portal wire.

The On3 Transfer Portal Instagram account and Twitter account are excellent resources to stay up to date with the latest moves.