Diggy Coit's 41-point performance propels Maryland men's basketball over Mount St. Mary's, 95-90

Chase King
22 hours ago
4 min read

Maryland basketball hosted Mount St. Mary’s for the third straight season, where David Coit would take over in a close game, scoring 41 points, including a game-tying shot at the end of regulation.

The Terps would struggle with the Mount despite winning their last two matchups against Mount St. Mary’s, 86-52 in 2024 and 68-53 in 2023.

One reason for that was the Terps' injury report grew before the game, with the Terps starting their first game without star big man Pharrel Payne after he was injured in the win against Marquette.

Redshirt freshman George Turkson Jr., Myles Rice and Solomon Washington were also on the list of injuries for the Terps.

The Terps rolled out a starting lineup of freshman Darius Adams, redshirt freshman Andre Mills, grad student David Coit, Saunders, and Metcalf, who makes his first start of the year.

Senior forwards Elijah Saunders and Collin Metcalf would have to take a bigger role in the frontcourt along with freshman forward Aleks Alston, following the absence of Payne.

However, the Terps would find a way to win without their star big man, Payne, and a large part of that was due to the performance by grad student David Coit.

Coit ended the game with 41 points on 11-for-17 shooting, 8-for-10 shooting from three, and 11-for-11 from the free throw line. His 41 points would be tied as the third most ever in Terrapins history and the most points ever scored in the XFINITY Center.

“I was just trying to make the right play, trying to read the game,” said Coit after the game, “I was not trying to play selfish, like ‘Oh, I’m scoring tonight. Let me score.’”

Coit would also give credit to Head Coach Buzz Williams after his game, as he said, “Any player knows, any person knows when the people around you believe in you, it just gives you the utmost confidence. They believe in me to make those plays. So I’m grateful for who’s around me.”

“I don’t want to take any credit. I think anytime there’s the amount of growth and maturation an individual’s had in such a short period of time, that would be a credit to him and to his parents,” said Williams.

The game would start close, both teams keeping it within four points for the first 14 minutes of the game.

The Terps were getting their points from driving in the paint and getting fouled, along with a couple of three-point shots for Coit.

Mount St. Mary’s would score early from the three-point line. The Terps were double-teaming down low, which led to a lot of open looks for the Mountaineers, who shot 32.3% from three coming into the game.

The Mountaineers shot 5-for-9 from behind the arc in the first 14 minutes of the game, keeping the game close with the Terps.

The Terps ended the first half with 20 free-throw attempts. Adams had a team-high 11 free throw attempts, including 3 free throws to end the quarter after getting fouled on a three-point attempt.

The Terps went into the half leading 40-32, and they would expand their lead to 53-40 following a couple of Coit three-pointers and Mills drives.

Despite that, Mount St. Mary’s wouldn’t go away, instead starting a 24-8 run to bring the lead to 53-50.

The Mount orchestrated the run through the three-point line on offense and through a full-court press on defense. They made five three-pointers in three minutes.

The Terps would turn the ball over six times in the second half, which helped Mount St. Mary’s separate into a large lead.

Mount St. Mary’s would keep a lead from 9:37 to 0:08 seconds in the second half when

The Mountaineers would keep their lead by attacking the paint and causing the Maryland defense to be late on their rotations, leading to easy three-point shots and fouls.

However, with 0:08 seconds left, Coit would take a deep three and made his seventh three of the night to tie the game and eventually bring it to overtime.

“I want the best shot we can get,” said Coit, “They kind of messed us up with the zone, so I thought I had a good look, so I took it.”

Coit ended the second half with 24 points in the second half where he shot 5-for-6 from the three-point line.

In overtime, the Terps would hit two big three pointers, one from Saunders, which was his second three of the game, and another from Coit, which brought him to his total of 41 points.

Saunders finished the game with 14 points and played the most minutes of all players in the game, playing 43:57. Despite that, he only finished the game with five rebounds while playing the center spot for most of the game.

“Elijah continues to be more physical, be more aggressive. I don’t think it’s his nature, but his nature is bending,” said Williams.

After getting a couple of stops against the Mount and Adams getting fouled three times in a row, the Terps would win the game.

Adams finished the game scoring a total of 19 points and shooting 17-for-21 from the free throw line, the most from a Maryland freshman since Diamond Stone shot 25 free throws in a 70-64 win vs. Penn State in 2015.

Maryland will now head to Las Vegas to take on UNLV in game one of the Players Era Festival.

Related Links