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When Illinois came to Cameron last fall, Kofi Cockburn presented immediate problems for the Blue Devils.
Listed at 7-0 and 285, the Kingston, Jamaica native was simply too big for Duke to deal with at that point in the season. Duke tried several players, but Matthew Hurt wasn’t big enough and Mark Williams wasn’t strong enough and no one else could touch him either.
Well Duke may not have seen the last of him.
Wisely, Cockburn pulled out of the NBA Draft but then entered the transfer portal. He had gotten down to three options - stay at Illinois, go to Kentucky or transfer to Florida State.
Well now Kentucky is out, so if he chooses to go, that means Florida State.
Apparently, the interest in Kentucky was one-sided. Reportedly, they encouraged him to stay with the Illini, possibly because they already have West Virginia transfer Oscar Tshiebwe who would overlap quite a bit. Plus Kentucky may be optimistic about 5-star Jalen Duran.
Honestly, we can’t really see him at Florida State. We haven’t seen the official roster for this upcoming season yet - the official site hasn’t been updated - but Leonard Hamilton has always used his big men in pretty limited ways and Cockburn is better than just a big guy to jam up the middle.