Diggy Coit breaks down his latest historic performance in win vs. Penn State

Ahmed Ghafir
22 hours ago
3 min read

While head coach Buzz Williams Maryland men's basketball picked up its first Big Ten win of the season, it came with the veteran point guard leading the way once again as Diggy Coit broke his own Xfinity Center scoring record in a 23-point win vs. Penn State.

Coit finished with 43 points, breaking his previous record of 41 points in the November win vs. Mount St. Mary's. His 43 points tied Al Bunge for the second most in program history as his three pointer with 4:39 left pushed him past several program greats once again, including Greivis Vasquez was in attendance for Hispanic Heritage Day.

"Obviously felt hot, felt good going into the game. I felt the momentum from the team and just seeing a couple shots go in and they just telling me they can't guard me, be aggressive," Coit said postgame. "But my team always gives me that confidence. I felt good from the start."

Coit was seen waiving off possible shot attempts, instead electing for Aleks Alston and Darius Adams to take a pair of threes inside the final two minutes. Coit would give it one last chance with a three-point attempt that fell short with 39 seconds left, but the senior said he wasn't chasing the record. Instead, Coit finished one point shy of tying Ernie Graham's single-game scoring record and instead settled for his second 40-point game of the season.

“I knew, but I wasn't chasing it. I knew I could have. They would have let me take every shot. But obviously they [were] being physical. They [were] being aggressive. It was getting chippy and I just think it was smarter for me to just not do that. If I made two free throws, it'd have been different.”

But Coit would prove to be the spark Maryland needed on Sunday after scoring eight of the team's first ten points en route to six made threes and 30 points by halftime. While Darius Adams drilled an off-balanced three as time expired, Coit's scoring helped give Maryland a 30-point lead heading into halftime with the team's 56 points marking the most in a half during a Big Ten regular season game.

"He has video game tendencies," head coach Buzz Williams said postgame.

Coit also stressed his focus on the "process a lot of times," echoing a theme of Buzz Williams' point of emphasis through his first year at Maryland.

"I've been focused on my spiritual life, my girlfriend, my best friend over there - best friends over there. So not trying to be result oriented, trying to focus on the process. And we’ve all been saying that in prayer, [Elijah] leads a lot of prayers for us and just trying to focus on - obviously, we want to win, but we got to focus on how not to lose and how to put ourselves in [the] best position to get what we want. So it obviously feels great to win but more focused on the process.”

While Maryland picked up its first conference win, senior forward Elijah Saunders admitted there's "nothing really to celebrate."

“Right now, we're second to worst in the league, so there’s nothing really to celebrate when you’re 1-6. So I would just say, like Diggy said, keep focusing on the process and keep trying to improve, because just because we won by 20, now we're about to play two ranked teams. It's a tough league and we got to keep our head down and keep working.”

Maryland will face 13th-ranked Illinois on Wednesday, Jan. 21 for a 7 PM tipoff vs. BTN.

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