Thomas’s eligibility a boon for Butler Bulldogs

A “unique asset,” Ashanti Thomas aspires to lift a Butler team with championship aspirations.

“I’m all in,” Butler coach Kurt Godlevske said.

Entering his fifth season at the helm, Godlevske said he needed only two minutes to decide he wanted Ashanti Thomas to don a Bulldogs uniform. Hoping to build upon a season where Butler’s 64.5 points per game fell in the middle of the pack nationally, he opted to pursue Thomas, who is now a redshirt junior.

On April 19, 2017, OnwardState.com reported that Thomas, a 6-foot-4 sophomore, would not return for her final two years of eligibility. The Lexington, Ky., native asked for her release from Penn State because she wanted to play closer to home. Upon learning of Thomas’s availability, Butler assistant coach John Marcum showed Godlevske film of Thomas playing.

Godlevske decided quickly that he wanted to recruit her.

Now they had to persuade Thomas to visit the Big East school, whose women’s basketball program finished 6–12 in Big East play a season ago, good for eighth in the standings.

“When we got her on campus, we basically sold her on the fact that you’re obviously going to get a great education but you’re going to be an impactful player in the Big East,” Godlevske said. “‘Look what we’ve done with (senior) Tori (Schickel). With your size and your length, we think we can even do more with you. If your goal is to make money in this sport, we can help you get to that.’

“Thankfully for us, she believed in us and she’s been doing really well in school and taking those next steps as far as skillset goes. Even over the past year, her skillset has grown by leaps and bounds. She’s going to have a huge impact on our team.”

In the league’s preseason poll, Big East coaches picked Butler to finish seventh.

As a Nittany Lion, Thomas started 29 games, averaging 3.7 points and 3.1 rebounds while playing 13.6 minutes per game. Why did Godlevske believe in Thomas so quickly?

“How physical she is with the ball,” Godlevske said. “She gets it (the ball) and she’s what I would even just call violent with her rip-throughs and pivoting. You just don’t get opportunities with 6-foot-4 players that often. To have that is really a unique asset for us.”

Thomas chose Butler because, in part, the campus is approximately 300 miles closer to hometown.

But, before she played a game as a Bulldog, her mother moved to California.

“Before she moved, it was really nice,” Thomas said. “I was able to go home a lot more often than I was the year before that.”

Thomas expressed happiness for her mother, who lived in two Midwest states before she moved west to pursue a career opportunity.

“Her moving away, it impacted me at first because I did come to a school that was closer to home,” Thomas said. “I was actually really happy for her. Just being able to experience a new state, I was pretty excited for her. She’s doing pretty good right now.”

Thomas also expressed optimism about a Butler campaign that begins on Nov. 9 with a noon tipoff at home against Eastern Illinois.

“I’m actually pretty excited about the season,” Thomas said. “I think we were pretty solid last year without the transfers that came in and the redshirts. I think adding us will (have) a positive impact this year, but I’m pretty excited. We’re playing well together.”

Katherine Strong, a redshirt junior, also sat last season because she transferred from VCU.

The duo join a team that went 15–17 a year ago and won a Big East Tournament game for the third consecutive season. Butler’s opponents outscored the Bulldogs by 0.8 points per game, according to Her Hoop Stats. Further, Butler’s 93.2 points per 100 possessions landed them 157th among 349 Division I teams.

Schickel earned an All-Big East First Team Selection a season ago. Thomas credited Schickel, who stands at 6'1", for her own development.

“The biggest thing I learned sitting out was how to better manage my time as a student,” Thomas said. “I got to focus a lot more on my study habits and how I could learn how to manage it when I was back to traveling with (the) basketball (team). Even though I wasn’t traveling (last year), a lot of my time was still consumed.

“Outside of that, it was nice to be able to sit back and observe and learn. I could watch Tori while she played and practiced. I learned a lot from her. It was a different type of world but it was good perspective.”

Godlevske praised his team’s mentality.

“Our experience and our mindset right now, probably, for the first time since I’ve been here, has really that championship-type of feel to it,” Godlevske said. “I’m not having to sell them on the fact that they can do it and I’m not having to say to them that they can do it. It’s more, ‘You know what you have to do. You know what you’re capable of.’ The mindset and the culture of the mindset is completely different than what it was two years ago, which has been exciting.”

Godlevske said his team wants to build upon last season, that included missed opportunities.

“We played ourselves into several games against very good teams in our league where we had opportunities to win,” Godlevske said. “They would’ve been very meaningful games (that) could’ve had postseason implications and we just didn’t finish.

“We think that we have the skill, the talent and the depth to be a major player in the Big East this year,” Godlevske said. “We want to win a championship. That’s kind of our goal.”

Said Thomas, “I’m just excited to play and to get back on the court with my teammates.”

Do you like what you’re reading? Please consider subscribing to herhoopstats.com.