An inside look at Belmont Basketball star forward Nick Muszynski

Belmont’s Nick Muszynski (33) is announced before taking on the SIU Edwardsville Cougars during their quarterfinal game of the Ohio Valley Conference 2021 Basketball Championships at the Ford Center in Evansville, Ind., Wednesday evening, March 3, 2021.Ovc Mball Belmont Vs Siue 18 /

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Belmont’s Nick Muszynski Ovc Mball Belmont Vs Siue 27 /

Nick shares some college memories

Putting on the uniform would have to wait though as Nick was redshirted his freshman season, something that was expected and more commonplace than not at Belmont. He says he never talked to the staff about taking a redshirt season, it was always his plan to do so. “There would’ve been nights I could’ve played 20 minutes and nights I could play none. I wanted that consistency, I wanted to be fully prepared.”

More than anything Muszynski said he wanted the redshirt for acclimation more than anything, acclimation to the pace of Division I play and to college life in general. It certainly paid off as he has had an extremely successful career with lots of high points.

A couple of the biggest memories for him were for very different reasons he said. “The first would be our first-ever NCAA Tournament victory against Temple. That team was incredible we had five (eventual) All-Conference guys, it was coach (Rick) Byrd’s last year. I injured my ankle in the conference championship game, we lost to Ja Morant, we didn’t know if we were gonna get in an even if we did, I didn’t know if I was going to play.”

The second memory for him was the 2020 season when Belmont won the Ohio Valley tournament when Nick was voted Most Outstanding Player. He looked back, “We had some kinks we had to work out both offensively and defensively.” They got things straightened out in a big way, “We ended up reeling off 12 wins in a row, we truly made it to the mountain top, since the tournament moved to Evansville, we had not won the OVC tournament.”

On the flip side, he says the biggest disappointment for him in his career was, “The way the season ended. That Saturday in Evansville against Morehead State where we got beat and to be honest that entire second half never really felt like we were within striking distance.” He also adds. “1000% credit to Morehead State, they played phenomenally. I don’t think we played poorly by any means, but they played the game of their season.” That memory gives Nick and his teammates the fire to get ready for this season.