Northwestern officially had its first player enter the transfer portal today in seven-foot forward Cade Bennerman. On3 reporter Joe Tipton reported the news today via a post to the website's "Transfer Portal" X account.
Bennerman, a freshman, spent his entire first season of college riding the bench and, ultimately, decided to redshirt the season to maintain eligibility. Evidently, he's decided that the best move for his career is to start it somewhere else.
Most likely, this decision means that Bennerman is targeting a much larger role at a mid-major. Theoretically, he could try to transfer "up," but that would seem like a mistake for a guy who couldn't crack the lineup on a bad Northwestern team this season that was in desperate need of size.
The reality is, Bennerman looked strikingly thin in warm ups and shoot arounds this season, even for a seven-footer. He'll certainly fill out over the course of his career, but he didn't have the beef to match up with Big Ten centers this season. He probably would have struggled in that exact area next season, too.
For Chris Collins and Northwestern, it's never ideal to lose a prospect you hoped to develop in house. The 'Cats pride themselves on churning out the "four-year" player, and I don't doubt that Collins would have ultimately turned Bennerman into a quality rotation piece.
But that may have taken a while to do, and he probably wouldn't have seen much action while he figured things out.
While I can understand Bennerman's reason for transferring in general, it does seem a bit curious that he would do so after a redshirt season. The freshman hasn't wasted any college eligibility yet, and he could have elected to run it back, even if it was for just one more season, to see how things panned out.
Instead, Bennerman exits, and Northwestern's existing need has become all the more massive. Let's be clear -- Collins probably didn't have enough bigs in 2025-26. He cannot make that same mistake again, and he knows that. Expect the 'Cats to be active in recruiting center talent in the transfer portal as soon as players can start committing to new teams.
Bennerman could also choose to come back, but even in that unlikely scenario, Northwestern still needs more bigs. I wrote in a story earlier this week that I think Arrinten Page might leave. There were effort questions and defensive questions all season with him, and his playing time dipped as a result. He could easily decide a change of scenery is necessary.
There will be a lot of moving parts on the roster this offseason -- that's the way of the new-school NCAA. But with one big man leaving and another that definitely could leave, Collins has to go add talent at the position. Even with both of those guys this year, it was a clear weakness.