KU announces signing of NIU transfer Coit; roster set at 13 scholarship players

Former Northern Illinois point guard David Coit has officially joined the Kansas Jayhawks men’s basketball team, KU coach Bill Self announced Monday.

Coit, a 5-foot-11, 175-pound senior who has signed his financial aid agreement, announced his commitment to KU’s program Friday. He completes the 2024-25 KU roster at the NCAA limit of 13 scholarship players.

Counting six walk-ons, KU will have 19 players overall.

“David can shoot. He has range,” Self said Monday. “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.”

A native of Columbus, New Jersey, Coit has one year of eligibility remaining. He was third-team all-Mid-American Conference and second team all-NABC district 14 the last two seasons.

A 40.7% shooter who hit 94 of his 279 three-point attempts (33.7%), Coit was the 24th-leading scorer in Division I hoops this past season. He went for a career-high 37 points vs. Buffalo on March 8, 35 points against Akron, 34 against DePaul and 32 against Western Michigan.

He converted a career-high eight 3s versus DePaul and six of seven attempts against Iowa.

It all added up to 16 games a year ago in which he scored 20 or more points — along with four games in the 30s.

In two seasons at NIU, Coit scored 1,051 points and made 175 three-pointers, or an average of 3.5 per game. He’s also made 175 career assists and 63 steals in his career and brings an 87.9% free-throw mark (160-of-182) to KU.

Following high school at Scotland (Pennsylvania) Campus Sports, 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. He was the 2021-22 Garden State Athletic Conference player of the year in his one season at Atlantic Cape.

A look at the KU roster

Coit is the fifth scholarship player KU has added to its 2024-25 roster via the transfer portal.

KU has added Coit plus fellow scholarship guards AJ Storr (Wisconsin), Shakeel Moore (Mississippi State), Rylan Griffen (Alabama) and Zeke Mayo (South Dakota State). Former Rice guard Noah Shelby is a non-scholarship player for the Jayhawks.

KU has also added freshman guard Rakease Passmore and forward Flory Bidunga to go with scholarship returnees Hunter Dickinson, Dajuan Harris, KJ Adams, Jamari McDowell, Zach Clemence and Elmarko Jackson.

KU has six walk-ons: Shelby, Wilder Evers, Patrick Cassidy, Justin Cross, Dillon Wilhite and Will Thengvall.

Barring unforeseen circumstance, KU is expected to start the 2024-25 school year with a full allotment of 13 players on scholarship. The last time KU had a full allotment of 13 scholarship players was 2021-22, when the Jayhawks actually had 14 because the NCAA awarded a super-senior season to players affected by the COVID-19 season that prevented fans from attending games.

NCAA penalty to be completed in 2025-26

Some have wondered why KU would bring aboard a 13th scholarship player when a self-imposed NCAA penalty requires the program to reduce its scholarship totals by three over the course of the 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 academic years.

KU had just 11 eligible scholarship players in 2023-24, counting Arterio Morris, who left the team before the first game. Two scholarships shy of 13 a year ago, KU could have completed the penalty this season, had it stayed at 12 scholarships.

Now, with 13 scholarship players, the Jayhawks’ roster must be a scholarship short of the maximum in 2025-26.

A source close to the program told The Star the Jayhawks are not concerned about being a scholarship down in 2025-26 because teams are expected to be allowed a maximum of 15 scholarship players in 2025-26, in accordance with new NCAA rules.

The value of adding another scholarship guard for this season, and not staying at 12, may have grown when sophomore Jackson, projected to be a member of the rotation, was ruled out for the season after undergoing surgery this summer.

Also as Self stated Monday, the deep-range shooting of Coit gives KU a “different dimension,” most notably from 3-point range.

The addition of Coit and subtraction of Jackson for one season (he’ll be back in 2025-26) means KU has 12 scholarship players capable of contributing in games. That number could dip to 11 or 10 if a player or two take a redshirt year. Self has not commented on the possibility of anybody redshirting this season.

KU had 10 scholarship players available (with Morris out) in 2023-24. That number dipped to nine for the postseason when Kevin McCullar was unable to play because of a knee injury.

KU had 12 scholarship players in 2022-23, one under the limit of 13. The Jayhawks had 14 on scholarship in 2021-22; 11 in 2020-21; 12 in 2019-20 and 2018-19; 13 in 2017-18; 12 in 2016-17; and 13 in 2015-16.