‘He’s a lottery pick’ - Minnesota's Daniel Oturu Provides Kofi Cockburn His Most Difficult Challenge
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The next player who stands in the halfcourt circle of the State Farm Center waiting for the opening tip might be Kofi Cockburn’s biggest challenge yet.
Minnesota (11-9, 5-5) will be bringing arguably the league’s best center to Champaign to tangle with the Illini’s 7-foot, 290-pound freshman. Daniel Oturu is second in the league in scoring at 19.7 points per game and leads the conference with 11.3 rebounds per contest. His 11 double-doubles, most recently a 19 and 14 outing in a 75-69 win over Penn State on Jan. 15, rank 11th in the country and second in the Big Ten. On Wednesday, Illinois third-year head coach Brad Underwood used the two-word phrase every player wants to hear about their prospects toward the next level of basketball.
“He’s a lottery pick,” Underwood said. “The guy tomorrow is a lottery pick. He reminds me so much of Kevin Garnett with his package. His athleticism, his skill set (and) he’s going to score some baskets. We just have to make him work.”
Underwood, who has referred to Oturu as “the most improved player in the country” since the start of the 2019-20 season, isn’t the only one projecting the 6-foot-10 sophomore as a high draft pick. NBADraft.net has Oturu projected at No. 8 overall to the Sacramento Kings and he rose 55 spots (from 80 to 25) on the draft prospect board done by The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie.
“His offensive talents are not limited to anything,” Underwood said. “He’s a very good rebounder, a very good shot blocker and he’s scoring it in a lot of ways.”
The analytical data shows Minnesota is about the slowest pace team in the Big Ten Conference as they really try to work the ball into the post to Oturu or play-in-roll action with point guard Marcus Carr. The Gophers only get 25.2 percent of its shot attempts in transition (as a comparison, Illinois gets 28 percent and Michigan State gets 35 percent) but Oturu is 58 percent from the field and has the length to create 51 blocks in 20 games this season.
Illinois center Kofi Cockburn is a seven-time Big Ten Conference Freshman of the Week.
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Cockburn is the reigning Big Ten Freshman of the Week, earning the honor after averaging 13.5 points, 9.0 rebounds and 1.5 blocked shots in the Illini’s pair of road wins.
Against 270-pounder Trevion Williams and 7-foot-3 center Matt Haarms, Cockburn had a huge game at Purdue. The Jamaican native recorded a double-double with game-highs of 22 points, 15 rebounds and three blocks. The 79-62 win at Mackey Arena on Jan. 21 marked his fifth 20-point game of the season and highest scoring total in league play. It was his eighth double-double, meanwhile, extending his Illinois freshman record and ranking fourth among NCAA freshmen this season.
Cockburn has had a vast degree of success against bigs in the Big Ten Conference as he averaged 17 points and 9.5 rebounds in two games versus Purdue and provided 15 points and six rebounds in a win at Wisconsin on Jan. 8. However, in a matchup Saturday at Michigan against John Teske, Cockburn fouled out with just five points and three rebounds in nearly 30 minutes of action. Against Maryland’s Jalen Smith in College Park on Dec. 7, Cockburn had nine points and eight rebounds while playing through foul trouble in 21 minutes.
This matchup Thursday night at State Farm Center, where Illinois is 11-1 this season, could certainly be a pivotal contest to decide if Cockburn deserves a frontcourt spot among the All-Big Ten first-team selections.