Chris Collins is starting to build his next class of recruits.
On Saturday, Northwestern Men's Basketball offered a three-star forward in the 2027 recruiting class. His name is Davis Cochran, and he's a Tennessee native who currently stands at 6-foot-9. He announced his first official high-major offer via X.
Cochran is not actually a consensus three-star at the moment. Of the two major industry standard recruiting websites, only Rivals has given him a ranking, while 247Sports still lists him as unranked. That is likely to change as more power conference offers start to roll in.
Per Rivals, Cochran is the No. 147 player in his class, the No. 22 power forward and the No. 2 player out of his home state. Tennessee isn't historically a great place for college basketball recruiting, so that number makes a bit more sense.
Currently, he's picked up one other major offer from Kansas State, and the rest of the group includes programs like Belmont, Middle Tennessee and Austin Peay. If Cochran decides he wants to stay closer to home and start his career in a less pressure-packed environment, he could choose Middle Tennessee. Otherwise, it feels like a battle between the Wildcats and the Wildcats right now.
Rivals gives Northwestern a slight advantage in its crystal ball feature. NU currently has a 19.8% chance to land his services, while Kansas State is listed at 17.3%. This suggests that they truly believe it could go either way, and his decision might come down to official visits. Of course, Cochran could receive other offers, and then the competition might be more stiff
At 6-foot-9, Cochran is the right size to play the four spot at the Big Ten level. He's also listed at 220 lbs, so he's got the body mass to bang around in the interior. Northwestern had a young player that fit this prototype in Tyler Kropp, but he departed in the transfer portal this offseason.
If the 'Cats can land Cochran, it would be yet another future addition to their front court. Head coach Chris Collins was frustrated last season by his team's difficulties on defense, and one of the issues was that the roster didn't have enough big bodies to cover other teams' big men.
Now, Northwestern has added multiple legitimate fives and a few other guys who could play at the four. Signing Cochran would only further fuel that pipeline as the seasons go on.
This offseason, NU was dealt an unfortunate hand. The program lost most of its roster to the transfer portal after escaping mostly unscathed in former offseason during the portal era.
If Northwestern's absurdly high retention rates aren't possible anymore, high school recruiting becomes all the more important. Building through the portal is possible, but teams still have to have young talent coming in to fill out the roster. Cochran would be one of those pieces in 2027.
