Her mom played in the WNBA, her dad in the NFL. This Carver hoops player is a star herself.
Olivia Cochran shrugs at the notion that she might be the best women’s basketball prospect from Georgia since Maya Moore. She is humble, but there’s no denying her talent.
Sports run deep in Cochran’s family. Her mother, Tara Williams, was a second-team All-SEC guard as a senior at Auburn in 1997 and played two seasons in the WNBA (1997 for Phoenix and 2000 for Portland). Her father, Antonio Cochran, was a defensive lineman at Georgia and was picked by the Seattle Seahawks in the fourth round of the 1999 NFL draft. He played five seasons for Seattle and one season for the Arizona Cardinals.
Cochran, the Ledger-Enquirer’s All-Bi-City Player of the Year in 2019, announced her commitment to Louisville last July. At the time, the 6-1 forward was ranked No. 12 in the Class of 2020 by Prospect Nation, and ranked as the No. 21 prospect in the U.S., according to ESPN. Her ESPN scouting report describes her as a “power-body interior performer,” who competes on both offense and defense.
She has not always been the dominant force she is today for Carver High School.
She did not play basketball competitively until sixth grade. The only basketball she played before sixth grade was for recreation. It started out as “just something to do,” she said, as she was a cheerleader and played softball.
“I ain’t have nothing else to do,” Cochran said with a smile. “So I just started playing.”
Now, she’s become both a key player in Carver’s quest for another state title, and one of the top women’s basketball recruits in Georgia.
‘The day she walked in the door’
Carver girls basketball coach Anson Hundley knew “the day she walked in the door” that Cochran had a special talent. She did not need much coaching and most of her basketball instincts came naturally.
But Cochran was out of shape when she came to Hundley. It was hard to run up and down the court, Cochran said, so she had to push herself to get in better shape. Hundley credits that work ethic to her success, and said she became a much more dominant player once her conditioning levels improved.
“She just needed a little tune-up,” Hundley said. “She didn’t need much. Just a lot of pushing her and pushing her in order to get better.”
Cochran mainly plays center for the Tigers, though Hundley anticipates she’ll play more of a stretch four role (a power forward who can generate offense from further away from the basket) in college.
Her size — she’s 6-1 — opens up the rest of the offense since she draws so much attention. Westover’s girls tried to guard her in zone defense Tuesday night, and Carver cruised to an easy 82-39 win.
“A lot of teams double team and triple team her, which leaves people open,” Hundley said. “On nights where we shoot the ball well, we’re normally pretty successful. She makes it easy to game plan and she makes it hard for other teams to game plan against us.”
Can Carver and Cochran win another title?
Last year, as a junior center, Cochran averaged 27 points, 16 rebounds and eight blocks per game. She scored 15 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in the Georgia High School Association class 4A girls state final, a 56-44 victory over Spalding to cap an undefeated (32-0) season for the Tigers. She was named to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s first-team 4A All-State team in 2018 and 2019.
In April, Cochran was named most valuable player at USA Basketball Women’s 3x3 U18 National Championship tournament at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Her team won the title, going 7-1 with three AAU teammates from Atlanta-based FBC (Finest Basketball Club): Madison Hayes of East Hamilton High School (Ooltewah, Tennessee), Treasure Hunt of Hamilton Heights High School (Chattanooga, Tennessee) and Raven Johnson of Westlake High School (Atlanta).
The Tigers will need more of Cochran’s best to win their second consecutive state title. It all starts Friday, with a home game against Cairo.
The Carver girls lead region 1-4A outright, after beating Americus-Sumter 54-46 this past Saturday. And the road ahead looks more than doable, especially after Tuesday night’s trouncing of the Westover girls.
After facing Cairo, the Tigers host Northside and wrap up the regular season with a road game against Westover. The Carver girls are expected to be a No. 1 seed in the 1-4A region tournament.
“We’ve just got to keep pushing to get there,” Cochran said. “Take it game by game.”
This story was originally published January 24, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
