Wednesday night was surely one to remember for Maryland men’s basketball. It landed five-star recruit Baba Oladotun, but Diggy Coit stole the show and delivered one of the best performances in program history.

He scored 41 points and put the Terps on his back, including the game-tying three-pointer at the end of regulation, and seven points in overtime to defeat Mount Saint Mary’s 95-90.

Here are the takeaways from the game. 

Diggy Coit Masterclass

The storyline of the night was expected to be the Terps landing Oladotun as the first local recruit in the Williams era. An early-season matchup against Mount Saint Mary’s is not usually memorable, but Coit made sure the story stayed within the team and the game. 

After starting the season on the bench, Coit has stepped up as of late. He led the Terps in scoring against Marquette, and with Payne out, Coit seized his opportunity as the first scoring option. 

The graduate guard’s 41 points were the third-most by a Maryland player. He knocked down eight threes — with none bigger than his game-tying three to close out regulation. Whenever the Terps needed a big shot, he knocked it down. Maryland’s deficit reached six points late in the second half, but Coit instantly erased that with back-to-back threes. Then in overtime, he scored seven points to lead the Terps to victory. 

“I mean, you want the shot. The play was, for me, I want the best shot we can get. I’m not trying to be selfish,” Coit said. “Every night it’s going to be somebody else scoring and making their plays, so I just tried my best to make the right play, and I did that. I was just put in position to score and was able to get some shots going.”

An unexpected classic

After defeating a top-tier program in Marquette on Saturday, the last thing Maryland expected was to be in a dog fight with Mount Saint Mary’s. Yet, that’s exactly where they found themselves on Wednesday night. 

Maryland knew it would be shorthanded coming into Wednesday’s matchup against Mount Saint Mary’s. But against an inferior program, the Terps were still expected to take care of business and win easily. That was not the case. 

It looked like Maryland was starting to pull away late in the first half and early in the second, as its lead extended to 13 points at the 14:51 mark. But on the stat sheet, the Mount was outplaying the Terps. They had shot better from the field and from three, and grabbed more rebounds. This kept them in the game, as their run began. 

Mount Saint Mary’s stormed back with a 24-8 run to take a six-point lead — and knocked down five three-pointers during that stretch — often wide open. Xavier Lipscomb and Arlandus Keyes combined for those five, and 11-for-17 total from behind the arc, while the team shot 17-for-36 from downtown. 

“Our adjustment to protect the rim has helped us, but the consequence, the byproduct of it, is we’re going to give up more threes,” Williams said. “You’re not going to be able to do both.”

It helped the Mount take a five-point lead into the final two minutes, but the aforementioned Coit refused to let Maryland lose. He scored 14 points in the final two minutes of regulation and overtime as the Terps stole a win in College Park. 

Terps need to get healthy

From the beginning of camp, Maryland’s roster has not been healthy. Rakease Passmore was lost to a season-ending injury, forward Solomon Washington is yet to make his Terps debut, and guard Myles Rice has been limited to just one game. Additionally, the injury to Pharrel Payne — the team’s best player — against Marquette in Saturday’s win further depleted the depth. 

The Terps refused to let their injuries affect the outcome in their past two games and have worked around them all season. 

“This whole season so far has been an adjustment,” Elijah Saunders said. “We’ve been adjusting with guys coming in and out, in and out of the lineup.”

Now a bigger test lies ahead. 

Maryland will head to the Players Era Men’s Championship Tournament in Las Vegas next week with a step up in competition. It will face UNLV (2-2), which just defeated Memphis and is playing in its home city, followed by Gonzaga (5-0) on Tuesday. All five wins for the Zags have been by double digits, including a 27-point rout of No. 23 Creighton.

Williams has harped about rebounding all season — and it was a problem again on Wednesday. The Terps were outrebounded 37-35 by the Mount, not a good sign for a team with frontcourt injuries heading to play on a national stage against a Gonzaga team that ranks 14th in the Nation in rebounds per game.

The hope is that at least Rice is back next week, while holding out for Washington and Payne to return and make a statement in Las Vegas.