Diggy Coit kept a simple routine for the first year-and-a-half of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Back home in Columbus, New Jersey, Coit piled into his silver Dodge Charger to make the short drive to Sfizio Pizza — a local Italian-owned staple run by Marco and Claudio Lubrano. He greeted the pair before leaving with a stack of checkered pizza boxes.
On the hunt for his weekly $250 paycheck — a pair of basketball shoes in his trunk — Coit sped through daily deliveries. He often stopped at one of the six asphalt courts at Moody Park, a childhood favorite, after his pizza deliveries.
Training under the streetlights, he found refuge.
Five years and three colleges later, Coit returned to the East Coast to play for Maryland men’s basketball. The graduate guard and oldest player on the Terps’ revamped roster takes pride in the struggles he’s endured.
“Nothing in my life was given to me,” Coit said. “I was just trying to master every single day.”
The 5-foot-11 guard first remembers playing basketball when he was about three years old. He gradually fell in love with the game.
Once he committed to basketball as his main sport, Coit focused on building relationships and establishing mentors. Allen Ragland filled the role.
The longtime trainer and coach met Coit before his last season at Scotland Campus, a Pennsylvania prep school. Ragland was a stable presence in Coit’s life while he took a pre-college gap year.
“He saved my life,” Coit said.
Ragland headed Atlantic Cape Community College’s men’s basketball program. The university typically enrolls just more than 4,000 students and is part of the National Junior College Athletic Association — far from the Division I scholarship Coit eyed.
The coach accompanied Coit on a plethora of his post-delivery workout sessions in 2020 to help him get in shape.
The next summer, Ragland made a proposal.
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“I want you to come play,” Coit recalls Ragland, fresh at the community college, saying. “I promise, you’ll come, in the first month, you’ll have the offers that you’re looking for.”
Coit was skeptical. But he accepted.
He spent nearly 10 hours a day in the gym after arriving on campus. One night, Ragland received a call from campus security. Someone was in Atlantic Cape’s gym.
Ragland stared at the clock. It read 2 a.m.
“[Diggy’s] in there shooting hoops,” Ragland recalled. “The side door was open. He found a way to get in there, turn on the lights, and he was there working out.”
When maintenance officially opened the gym at 7 a.m., Coit was the first to reenter the facility, Ragland said.
The extra work paid dividends.
Coit averaged 30.6 points a game in a year at Atlantic Cape, the highest mark in NJCAA Division III. He was named the 2021-22 Garden State Athletic Conference Player of the Year.
Soon after the season, Ragland connected with Northern Illinois coach Rashon Burno, someone he calls a nephew.
Burno, having played with five of Ragland’s actual nephews at St. Anthony High School, visited an Atlantic Cape practice in September 2021. He observed Coit and his backcourt mate Richard Jones throughout the practice.
“They both don’t f—ing miss,” Ragland recalls Burno saying.
He soon extended an offer. Coit accepted.
Coit impressed in his first Division I opportunity, earning All-MAC honors in each of his two seasons with the Huskies. In his second year under Burno, Coit started all 29 games while scoring more than 20 points a contest.
He was ready to jump to a high-major school and initially committed to current Maryland coach Buzz Williams, then at Texas A&M. But compliance issues complicated the process. Coit, though eligible months later after hiring an attorney, no longer had a spot on the Aggies’ roster.
Assistant coach Steve Roccaforte, a longtime member of Williams’ staff, made a call to Kansas at the end of the summer — a gesture Coit said was valued in his decision to sign with Maryland this offseason.
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Jayhawks’ coach Bill Self signed the collegiate free agent. Coit played backup point guard and averaged 5.1 points alongside current Maryland teammate Rakease Passmore, who he formed a close bond with in their first season together.
“He is a character,” Passmore said on Meet the Terps. “At Kansas, we were always in the gym together, always in the dorm playing the game — so that relationship grew.’”
Despite having a close relationship with Self, Coit looked for more opportunities entering his fifth season — something Kansas couldn’t guarantee.
In the transfer portal this spring, Coit remembered Roccaforte and Williams’ authenticity. A move to Maryland to reunite with the pair made sense, he said.
“I wanted that freedom when I’m playing, but also I wanted to be pushed and challenged like I wasn’t before,” Coit said.
Before coming to College Park, though, Coit asked Ragland for one last summer workout.
The pair made the hour-long trek to Atlantic City’s Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, a training site Coit frequents during offseason breaks.Shadowed beneath the resort’s dual towers and just steps from the sun-bathed boardwalk, Coit raced.
The Maryland transfer ran 30 laps, dodging railings up and down the steps while he worked against a 25-minute timer.
Then came Ragland’s infamous 40-minute beach workout.
Under his guidance, Coit used the ocean as his defender. The 5-foot-11 guard dove for loose balls on the sand, ran defensive slides and sprinted chest-high into the water against surging waves.
His approach on the beach aligns with what Ragland calls his lion-like work ethic.
Now entering his final college season, Coit’s outlook remains clear.
“It’s really deeper than just picking up a basketball and playing,” Coit said. “Seeing a lot in my life on and off the court … gives [me] not just motivation and inspiration, but a lot of knowledge.”
