photo by: AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall

Northern Illinois guard David Coit (11) drives past Iowa guard Tony Perkins (11) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Friday, Dec. 29, 2023, in Iowa City, Iowa.

Allen Ragland, the head men’s basketball coach at Atlantic Cape Community College, once got a call from campus security at 2 a.m.

They told him one of his players, David Coit, had broken into the gym, trying to work out.

Later, after Coit had parlayed his NJCAA Division III first-team All-American showing at Atlantic Cape into a Division I scholarship at Northern Illinois, Ragland remembered hearing from NIU coach Rashon Burno that Coit had exceeded the amount of work he was supposed to be putting in by an additional 250 hours.

Clearly it paid off as Coit averaged 20.8 points per game his second year with the Huskies and fashioned himself into one of the MAC’s top scoring guards.

Now he enters a drastically different situation at Kansas, as a late addition to the roster and far from its focal point — but he and those around him know he will find a way to make himself valuable all the same. KU coach Bill Self has already said that Coit has been one of the team’s best outside scorers and will find a way to clear 20 points in multiple games this year.

“He’s adaptable,” Ragland told the Journal-World. “His determination to succeed on the court, his eagerness, his intensity level, is going to want him on the court more — but at the end of the day he’s going to do what he got to do for his team to be successful.”

And frankly, Coit doesn’t want to be in a situation where everything depends on him, he said at KU’s media day.

He understands that’s simply not how it goes at the high levels of basketball, and he said he can be “somebody who’s extremely confident in their ability, but also who has the ability to understand that this is a lot bigger than me.”

“It’s definitely a switch, but if you want to win, it ain’t nothing to put your pride and ego aside,” he said. “Because winning’s most important.”

Coit credits his success over the years in part to understanding that his journey through basketball would inevitably be unlike those of the players around him. That view continues for him now that he’s arrived in Lawrence.

“I think a lot of times we look at the other people around us like ‘Oh, I’m supposed to be doing this, I’m supposed to be doing that,'” he said. “… I’m a 5-9 guard from the middle of nowhere, New Jersey. My journey ain’t going to be like Hunter (Dickinson)’s or Dajuan (Harris’) or even (Shakeel Moore)’s. My journey’s different.”

Coit, who most teammates and coaches call “Diggy” — a nickname his father gave him when he was born, derived from a song — had known Ragland prior to the latter’s hiring at Atlantic Cape. Ragland said a lot of the work they did together revolved around first getting Coit in shape, then developing his talent.

Coit played a postgraduate year at Scotland Campus before bursting onto the scene at Atlantic Cape, to the tune of 30.6 points per game. The school’s athletic director, Jamal Edwards, another of Ragland’s former players, told The Press of Atlantic City when Coit was there that Coit would be the first Division I recruit to come out of the school in at least two decades.

Coit credits Ragland and Edwards as mentors who were more like family.

“I always say Rags saved my life, because I don’t know what I would be doing if it wasn’t for him,” Coit said.

When it came time to get Coit signed, Ragland connected with the newly installed NIU coach Burno, who he said was (in keeping with the theme) like a nephew to him, having played at the venerable St. Anthony High School in New Jersey with several of Ragland’s actual nephews. He “wanted him to have instant success with somebody like Diggy,” and meanwhile, Ragland thought the MAC would be the perfect conference for Coit due to the high-level guard play.

Coit’s second transfer process, this past offseason, went much less smoothly. After he initially went into the portal in April, it became unclear for months at a time whether he would actually be eligible to play in 2024-25. He had to wait on the procurement of a waiver that was not fulfilled until July.

“It was a lot of uncertainty,” he said. “We didn’t know what was really going on, what I could control, what I couldn’t control. So once we got a hold on that, basically got everything submitted and (the) waiver, we knew that basically I would get my year, we just didn’t know when.”

Self and Kansas assistant coach Jeremy Case had been on Coit early, but as Coit put it, “Coach Self understood better than I did I was going to miss the summer waiting on a waiver.”

To hear Ragland tell it, the waiver issue had derailed an initial plan to get Coit to TCU, where Ragland had a prior connection with head coach Jamie Dixon. Then, Coit was supposed to go to Texas A&M, but the Aggies took another player first, so it didn’t pan out.

“Next thing you know, it just worked out,” Ragland said.

KU circled back after losing Elmarko Jackson to a season-ending injury.

“They reached back out,” Coit said, “and it just felt like what I could bring, it was kind of missing on the team, or (they) could use, of just being able to shoot, the intensity, my personality.”

The personality has certainly stood out to Self, who said Coit provides “a confidence and a will that I think is welcome with this team.”

“At his standing height of 5-9 — maybe — he thinks he’s still the biggest, baddest dude in the room,” Self said. “And that is something that you have to have.”

From an on-court perspective, Coit believes he can provide valuable experience and leadership after three years at two schools — as well as, of course, the ability to score.

“Everybody’s just accepted me as part of the family, like as soon as I got here,” Coit said, “but also coaches and my teammates also holding me to the standard like I’ve been here before, obviously because I’ve played college basketball. They know my experience, they believe in my game and I think it was just an easier transition than I thought, just because of a lot of the great people around the program.”

The same approach that allowed him to reach new heights out of Atlantic Cape now has him poised to contribute to the preseason No. 1 team in the nation.

“You’re going to get the hardest-working guy in the gym,” Ragland said. “He’s going to give his all to help Kansas win that national title. He got great aspirations to be a pro, he (wants) his name called, so he’s going to do what he got to do to get there.”

“I got to get everything out the mud, I got to outwork people, I got to do the little things right,” Coit said of his approach. “Once I got that mindset, I think that changed my life. Thank God I’m here.”

photo by: Kansas Athletics

David Coit at Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024.

photo by: Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas guard David Coit fires a 3-pointer during Late Night in the Phog at Allen Fieldhouse on Friday, Oct. 18, 2024 in Lawrence.

photo by: Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas guard David Coit puts up a 3-pointer during Late Night in the Phog at Allen Fieldhouse on Friday, Oct. 18, 2024 in Lawrence.