“I got to give her a quick hug,” she said Friday. “She looked amazing, vibrant. I figured we would hook up again, but we didn’t. That’s what makes it so impossible to believe.”

Army assistant coach Dave Magarity had noticed a nagging cough recently. When he heard Dixon had fainted earlier this week, “My first reaction, she’s been running around like crazy with the season, the tournament, the Final Four.

“She had to be exhausted, that’s what I thought,” he said.

Magarity coached at Marist for 20 years before he took his first job coaching women last fall. He knew Jaime, having played against his team.

“With the Cadets, there are so many demands on them. It was almost like their time to have fun. I’m not sure they had fun before. She put a whole lot into these six months. She had a great run,” he said.

After Dixon walked into Bruno’s life in 2000, she rose from camp counselor to top assistant and recruiter in five years. In that span, the Blue Demons had three consecutive 20-win seasons and earned three straight trips to the NCAA tournament.

Bruno and Dixon talked every day since. They last saw each other at the Final Four, where she helped close down the hospitality suite, he said.

“She and (Connecticut coach) Geno Auriemma were the last two people there,” Bruno said.

Bruno visited Dixon at her bedside Thursday. He flew back to Chicago, learned she had died and told the DePaul players that evening.

“We cried, we laughed, told stories,” Bruno said. “We walked away reflected. She was a bubbly, fun-loving personality.”

Dixon was from North Hollywood, Calif., and her parents were both in the entertainment industry. At 6-foot-1, she had hopes of playing in the WNBA, but got cut by the Los Angeles Sparks after a tryout.

She then turned to coaching. Kathy Marpe wasn’t surprised by the immediate impact she made in her first year at Army, which finished 20-11 this season.

“The sky was the limit, she was a young and energetic coach that felt she could accomplish anything, and she did,” Marpe said. “Some players have a feel for the game. Plus, she had Jamie to model herself after. He really was her guiding light.”

Jamie was an assistant at Pitt under Ben Howland, and succeeded him. Howland, now at UCLA, fondly remembered Maggie.

“Words cannot express the sorrow and sympathy I feel for the loss of Maggie and for the Dixon family,” Howland said. “Maggie was an unbelievable person — young, vibrant, energetic and full of love. All of us are going to miss her dearly.

“Maggie was always a caring and giving person, willing to help anybody at any time. We should celebrate her life, which was much too short.”

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