As hard as it would have been, when Kansas added Shakeel Moore in June, to predict the Jayhawks going back to the well for another transfer point guard two months later, it will be just as difficult to forecast exactly what KU will get out of David Coit this year.
Coit, a rising senior who most recently played at Northern Illinois, signed a financial aid agreement not long after announcing his commitment, meaning that head coach Bill Self was able to comment on his credentials in a press release on Monday.
“David can shoot; he has range,” Self said. “He’s a player who can score the basketball. He averaged 21 points this past year at Northern Illinois. I see him as a guy that gives us a whole different dimension that we may not have had he not signed with us.”
The question then becomes, with the 2024-25 season approaching: What is that dimension?
The answer may lie in the contrast he provides with both Dajuan Harris Jr. and the player previously expected to serve as Harris’ primary backup at point guard, the former Mississippi State guard Moore.
To review: Harris is a three-year starter at point guard, a repeated all-conference selection and a national champion entering his sixth collegiate season. A self-possessed and efficient distributor, he “makes pro wings,” as former teammate and current Denver Nugget Christian Braun once put it; he locks down opposing guards at one end and puts his teammates in positions to succeed at the other. He doesn’t often shoot, but when he chooses to, he usually knocks down clutch 3s (as against Kentucky last year) or sinks improbable layups (as against Baylor).
Overtaxed playing 35.8 minutes per game on the shallow 2023-24 roster, Harris took a slight step back in some statistical categories, forcing fewer turnovers and committing more than he and his coaches would have liked at some points. The additions of Moore, Coit and Zeke Mayo will help Harris get more rest throughout the year.
Moore, who committed on June 5, is an extremely athletic combo guard who can shoot the occasional 3. He too provides great value at the defensive end, having made the final 15 for national defensive player of the year honors in 2022-23; his Defensive Bayesian Performance Rating of 1.50 (per EvanMiya.com) is best among KU’s incoming transfers.
In general, like Harris, he is a known quantity at this point in his career, having played extensive minutes in 98 career games for well-regarded power-conference teams.
Kansas guard Dajuan Harris Jr. (3) looks to drive against Samford guard Dallas Graziani (12) during the second half at Delta Center on Thursday, March 21, 2024 in Salt Lake City. Photo by Nick Krug
Mississippi State guard Shakeel Moore (3) is pursued by Kentucky guard Antonio Reeves (12) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Starkville, Miss. Kentucky won 91-89.
Coit, in contrast to those two, is a bit of a wild card.
In the broad, narrative sense, his path to KU is an unconventional one. He went from a junior college that hadn’t produced a Division I prospect in more than two decades (according to The Press of Atlantic City) to an undistinguished MAC program and now to a national powerhouse — not to mention that he only arrived at KU after languishing in the portal while getting an eligibility waiver sorted out, and having been primarily linked with SEC schools in the interim. There’s no way of knowing how he might adapt to Big 12 competition or the high-powered teams the Jayhawks play in the nonconference.
His on-court performance can be similarly unpredictable. In his highlights, he unleashes swift arrays of moves on off-balance defenders and pulls up at odd angles or drives for contested layups. But part of the reason why Coit ended up averaging 20.8 points per game is that he would follow four straight games with double-digit made field goals and at least 27 points with a 12-point, 4-for-18 showing, or shoot .385 against a worse team and then .727 against a better one.
Coit’s 40.7% shooting and 33.7% from deep during the 2023-24 season comes in a very large sample size, because he shot the ball 492 times as a junior. No one else on NIU’s roster took more than 274 shots. (At KU, Hunter Dickinson led the Jayhawks with 456.) In fact, in Coit’s three years of college basketball he has taken double-digit shots in 75 of his 82 games.
Therein lies another element of uncertainty: How will Coit perform when he is far from his team’s primary scoring option? On a roster that now features 12 healthy scholarship players, many of whom are not far removed from being their own school’s primary scorer (AJ Storr, Mayo and Dickinson come to mind), games in which Coit takes double-digit shots will be a rarity. They may not come at all. And KU will need him to provide his primary value and efficiency as a scorer off the bench because his DBPR last year was minus-1.65, which is the worst of any qualifying player for next year’s KU roster who played at least 500 possessions last season.
The popular social-media comparison for Coit since his commitment has been Remy Martin, another undersized, high-scoring transfer guard with reasonably similar stats who, after a strange and protracted injury saga that left him a virtual nonentity in Big 12 play, ended up serving as a spark plug for the Jayhawks off the bench during their run to the 2022 national title
Of course, Martin had previously played on a much better team. The 2020-21 Arizona State men’s basketball team finished the year 82nd in Sports Reference’s Simple Rating System. Last year, Northern Illinois was 290th.
The luxury that KU has this year is that, unlike last year with players like Elmarko Jackson and Nick Timberlake, it does not necessarily need to unlock Coit’s full potential or have him emerge as a breakout star in order to have a good season. As Coit told 247Sports when he committed, “With or without me this is a great team. The way I can help take them (to) another level is just being another guy who can make plays, shoot and play off other good players.”
The 2024-25 roster seemed perfectly prepared to vastly exceed last year’s offensive output over the two months ahead of Coit’s commitment, when it seemed like Self and company were done building it. But bringing in Coit means adding yet another player with the potential, on a good night, to revive the offense when it stagnates and elevate it further when it’s already excelling.
AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh
AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis