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Eastern Illinois men's basketball head coach Marty Simmons has announced the hiring of Kylen Butler as a member of the Panthers coaching staff for the upcoming season.
 
A Danville, Ill., native, Butler returns to the region after working the last two seasons as the director of recruiting at Grand Canyon University on the staff of head coach Bryce Drew.  GCU won 47 games over the last two seasons with Butler on staff including a trip to this year's NCAA Tournament.    He most recently worked this spring as the special assistant to the head coach at Valparaiso being hired on head coach Roger Powell's staff after Powell was named Valpo's head coach in early April.
 
In his role at GCU he assisted the staff in all aspects of the recruiting process.  In his first season he was charged with replacing the Lopes' two leading scorers.  Behind the development of Jovan Blacksher Jr., and the addition of Holland Woods II, the team posted a 92 NET for the top mark in program history going 23-8.  In his second year he again helped bring in a talented class that posted a 24-12 record, winning the WAC Tournament before an NCAA opening round loss to Gonzaga.
 
"Kylen is an energetic young man who is just near the start of his coaching journey.   He brings a great knowledge of recruiting at a high-level and will be able to help us on both a national and regional level as we attract great players to our program," said Simmons.  "I'm excited to watch his growth in this business and welcome Kylen back to the region and to the EIU basketball family."
 
Butler began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at the University of Indianapolis in 2018-19 and later served as a graduate manager at Clemson working alongside Coach Simmons on the Tigers staff.  He then worked as the Director of Basketball Operations at Cal State Fullerton before joining the GCU staff.
 
As a player Butler prepped at Danville High School and began his collegiate playing career at Wallace State Community College in Alabama helping the program reach No. 11 in the NJCAA rankings during his time.  He later played at Tusculum and Indianapolis before graduating from UIndy in 2018.