The men’s basketball team of the Kansas Jayhawks has formally welcomed former Northern Illinois point guard David Coit, as head coach Bill Self announced on Monday. Coit, a senior who weighs 175 pounds and is 5 feet 11 inches, declared his commitment to the KU program on Friday after signing his financial aid contract. When he leaves the KU team in 2024–25, the NCAA cap of 13 scholarship players is reached. With six walk-ons, KU’s total roster will be 19 players. “David has shooting ability. On Monday, Self remarked, “He has range.” “He is a basketball player with scoring ability. At Northern Illinois last year, he scored 21 points a night on average. In my opinion, he offers us a completely new perspective that we might not have had he not joined with us.
Coit, a Columbus, New Jersey native, is still eligible for one more year. The past two seasons, he was named to the second team of the NABC District 14 and the third team of the Mid-American Conference. Coit, a 40.7% shooter who made 94 of his 279 three-point tries (33.7%), finished the previous season as the 24th-leading scorer in Division I basketball. March 8 against Buffalo, 35 points against Akron, 34 against DePaul, and 32 against Western Michigan were his career high point totals. Against DePaul, he made a career-high eight 3-pointers, and against Iowa, he made six out of seven. All of that tallied up to 16 games from a year ago where he scored 20 points or more, plus four more games with 30-plus points.
After attending Scotland (Pennsylvania) Campus Sports for his high school education, Coit attended Atlantic Cape (New Jersey) Community College, where he led NJCAA Division III in scoring at 30.6 points per game in 2021–22 and was named the Garden State Athletic Conference player of the year in his one season there. Coit scored 1,051 points and made 175 three-pointers, or an average of 3.5 per game, in two seasons at NIU. Additionally, he made 175 career assists, 63 steals, and an 87.9% free-throw mark (160-of-182) during his time there.
Along with AJ Storr (Wisconsin), Shakeel Moore (Mississippi State), Rylan Griffen (Alabama), and Zeke Mayo (South Dakota State), KU has added Coit. Noah Shelby, a non-scholarship player for the Jayhawks, used to play guard for Rice. Along with the scholarship returnees Hunter Dickinson, Dajuan Harris, KJ Adams, Jamari McDowell, Zach Clemence, and Elmarko Jackson, KU has acquired freshmen guard Rakease Passmore and forward Flory Bidunga. Shelby, Wilder Evers, Patrick Cassidy, Justin Cross, Dillon Wilhite, and Will Thengvall are KU’s six walk-ons.
In the absence of unforeseen circumstances, KU is anticipated to have a complete roster of 13 scholarship players when the 2024–25 academic year begins.
The Jayhawks really had 14 scholarship players in 2021–22 because the NCAA granted a super-senior season to students impacted by the COVID-19 season, which prevented spectators from attending games. This was the last time KU had a full allotment of 13 scholarship players.
A self-imposed NCAA penalty mandates the school to cut its scholarship totals by three during the period of the 2023–24, 2024–25, and 2025–26 academic years. Some have questioned why KU would add a 13th scholarship player. Only 11 players were eligible for scholarships at KU in 2023–24, including Arterio Morris, who quit the team prior to the season. If there had been 12 scholarships instead of 13 last season, KU would have been able to finish the punishment this season.
