NASHVILLE—Just under 22 seconds remained in a tie game between Belmont and Valparaiso as Eoin Dillon ripped to his a right-hand dribble, backed into a barkley, pounded it three times, spun to his right shoulder, spun back left and squeaked out a bounce pass across the lane to Belmont Center Drew Scharnowski.
With 11.7 seconds to go and significant MVC title implications looming, Scharnowski went up for an easy right-handed hook over his defender and gave Belmont the eventual game-deciding basket as a result of Dillon’s timely pass. When Scharnowski’s shot was flicked in, delirium ensued in Curb Event Center for the second time in as many consecutive possessions. A possession earlier, Dillon threw in a floater of sorts to give Belmont a 74-72 lead as he made a non-verbal answer to the call that few in his age bracket get.
A year prior, Dillon was sitting on the bench as Valparaiso and Belmont faced off at Curb Event Center. Here he was changing the outcome of the late stages of a January game enough to be asked postgame if he believes in the clutch gene. Dillon said he did. More importantly, the media member asked, did the Belmont forward believe he had it?
“I would say so,” Dillon replied.
The answer could’ve indicated that Dillon–whose first name is pronounced like ‘Owen’– was being braggadocious or over confident in regard to the premise of the question, but any other answer in that context would’ve been insincere. It would’ve been untrue, as well.
In a season in which Dillon started as a back-end rotation piece, he’s become a consistent late-game option for this Belmont team as it’s become the MVC’s first-place team by a significant margin and has reeled off 11 of its last 12. Eight of those 12 games were decided by less than 10 points, six have been decided by five or less, almost all of them have featured Dillon on the floor with the game on the line late–and for good reason.
The Belmont redshirt freshman has made game-tying or go-ahead baskets in the final minutes of six games this season, per Belmont communications. By the end of this, he may have six more of them.
“That's kind of what he lives for,” Belmont center Brigham Rogers told Basket Under Review. “He delivered in the SIU game, the Valpo game when we really needed him. I think it's just about him as a person, the way he approaches the game, his confidence and desire to be the one to step up in those moments.”
Belmont coach Casey Alexander says that Dillon’s late-game heroics has “built a life of its own” and he’s just delivered consistently enough and to keep himself in the mix. Alexander calls what his gutsy underclassman has done “amazing” and says he’s built a habit of going back to him late in games.
The idea that Dillon is Belmont’s definitive go-to guy late in games is one that Alexander pushes back on–he’s even gone as far as to remind Dillon of that as Alexander says he’s tried to “be a little bit too much of a playmaker”--but he says he’s comfortable turning to Dillon late in games. Perhaps some of his confidence comes from Dillon’s.
“If it's the last possession in the game, it's just still another possession,” Dillon told Basket Under Review. “Confidence is the biggest part of basketball, I would say.”
The quote-unquote freshman jitters appear to be nonexistent for Dillon as he’s in the midst of a 2-for-7 shooting day in Belmont’s eventual Missouri Valley Conference regular season championship win over Indiana State. When a number of young players in college basketball would’ve deferred, each possession in which Dillon is on the floor includes him hunting his shot. At the very least, he’s not showing any signs of passing up an open one.
Dillon is the Belmont player that Alexander says has the most personality of anyone on the team, is described as comfortable in his own skin and appears to be unrattleable.
“He has a sense of fearlessness about him,” Belmont assistant Luke Smith told Basket Under Review. “He just has a composure and a confidence that's really, really good for our team.”
The Belmont forward is 6-foot-9, 220 pounds and has ran up on a number of more physically-imposing players as well as a number of more experienced forwards. He’s often taken the floor as a young guy in the MVC’s best environments in some of its most meaningful regular season games. He doesn’t often appear to be overmatched, though.
Alexander says that Dillon’s personality–which Rogers and Smith describe as “goofy”--”certainly doesn’t hurt him” as he looks to help Belmont reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019. Dillon is comfortable in his own skin, Alexander says, and is able to translate that into his play.
When Dillon made a seemingly game-sealing 3 from the right win at Murray State, he let the Belmont bench hear about it from the floor. Alexander says Dillon is often smiling and laughing on the floor in a way that doesn’t take away from the intensity that he approaches this all with. Alexander would be quick to shut it down if he felt as if this wasn’t appropriate, but he’s letting Dillon be himself.
“He’s just such a confident person,” Alexander told Basket Under Review. “ If you're looking for the guy who's the loudest on the bus, it's going to be him. If you're looking for the guy that's in the [lighthearted] argument in the hotel room, it's going to be him. He's that kind of guy. The way you see it on the floor is through his competitiveness.”
Smith says that some guys have “ultimate confidence in themselves” and that Dillon "definitely is” included in that category. Rogers says that once Dillon saw the ball go in a few times late in non-conference play–when he eclipsed double figures for the first time against UC Irvine in the Bruins final non-league game–he appeared to be confident the rest of the way.
Perhaps Rogers has the best summation of what Dillon’s personality unlocks. In Rogers’ mind, it’s a “mix” of competitive spirit and lightheartedness that make Dillon a “very effective and confident player and a very high-level competitor.”
“I like to troll a little bit on the court,” Dillon said. “I have some fun just getting into some people's heads a little bit, just trying to aggravate them a little bit. Just see if I can get the energy on our team up, too.”
Buried at the far end of the Belmont bench, a few seats down from its tunnel in the end zone of the home sideline is Dillon in a blue quarterzip and tan khaki pants. Dillon, Belmont wing Bez Jenkins and Bruins’ guard Cooper Haynes.
The consensus within Belmont’s program a season ago was that Dillon would see the floor in some form if he hadn’t opted to redshirt, but the role may have been limited. Belmont already had Jonathan Pierre—a Memphis transfer who has since played in the NBA G League—as well as then-sophomore standout Sam Orme already had most of the minutes at the four locked up.
As a result, Dillon opted for a redshirt. It’s a move that is common in Belmont’s program, but has generally gone out of style in the transfer portal era.
“Collectively, we just made the decision that it was best for him not to waste the year not knowing what we were walking into,” Alexander said. “He would have gotten minutes, but I don't know what they would have looked like.”
Alexander and company had been watching Dillon since he was “kind of pudgy” and slow as a rising junior in high school, but they always knew that there was something in there that they wanted to see through. The first time Alexander saw Dillon in person, the Belmont coach recalls Dillon knocking down “a ton” of shots from 3-point range.
The Belmont staff didn’t get aggressive in Dillon’s recruitment until after his junior summer and had their hands full as they made an effort to pull Dillon out of central Illinois. What put them over the edge was what they saw from Dillon from a competitive standpoint. By the time Dillon committed to Belmont, he had an offer from Bradley—which was his hometown school—as well as Illinois State—which is less than an hour from his high school.
Dillon says that he needed to get out of Illinois to get out on his own, though. The Belmont forward says that he made the right decision to move to Nashville despite the comfortability that could’ve come with choosing an Illinois-based Valley school.
The quarterzip and khaki pants made an effort to hold in the late-game heroics and unique boldness that makes Dillon himself, but everyone in the gym knew that Belmont had something in Dillon in the summer prior to his freshman season. He knew it too.
Dillon knew that this was the best step for his development, though. The Belmont forward was the best player on most teams that he’d been on prior to the 2024-25 season. The idea that he wasn’t on this team was one that he needed to internalize in order to take steps forward.
So, he sat and watched.
“It humbled me a little bit,” Dillon said. “It definitely taught me a lot of things about patience because watching from the sideline for a year is definitely not a fun thing to do. Just coming out after a year of not playing, it’s a different experience.”
Dillon says he was 190 pounds when he arrived at Belmont’s campus and got up to 220 by the fall of 2025. The transformation that the Illinois native underwent throughout his year off the floor allows him to hold his ground around the basket more than he would have previously, he says, although he has since “slimmed down” from 220 pounds.
On the other side of the year away, Dillon joins Belmont forward Drew Scharnowski, Orme–as well as Belmont greats Taylor Barnette and Nick Muszynski–to utilize the year away. This program has used the rare year of development better than just about anyone, and Dillon appears to be the most applicable recent example.
“I think it helped him a lot,” Alexander said. “I think he handled it really well.”
Alexander sits in the second floor of Belmont’s practice facility as he’s provided the information that Dillon didn’t attempt a single field goal in the Bruins’ Battle of the Boulevard win over Lipscomb. The redshirt freshman got to the free throw line and took two shots there, but he was 0-for-0 from the field.
“Oh wow,” Alexander said.
It’s just crazy to think about that, right?
“I would say so,” Alexander said.
Dillon has turned the corner and is averaging 9.9 points, 2.7 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 0.6 steals per game while shooting 53.5% from the field and 48.5% from 3-point range in league play. But, the contrast in Dillon’s MVC production vs non-league production is stark. In the 11 non-conference games that he appeared in, Dillon went for 3.7 points per game, double figures just once and was held scoreless twice. Smith said that the Peoria native didn’t appear to be comfortable yet and wasn’t himself. “He kind of lost himself there for a minute,” Alexander said.
In hindsight, the Belmont forward was always closer to the player that he is these days than the player he was in November and December. Alexander says that Dillon hit a sophomore slump of sorts despite this being his first season. If his second half is any indication, Dillon has snapped out of it.
“I think getting the first few games under my belt was definitely a big thing for me,” Dillon said, “And I just think when I saw my shots falling, just everything was just like shooting into an ocean from there. Everything's been feeling good. The stroke's been feeling good and my teammates have been getting me open. They're keeping me confident, too.”
Dillon’s confidence has manifested in him scoring it in double figures in 7 of Belmont’s 12 games since Jan. 10. He’s taken at least five shots in all 12 of those games and hasn’t played less than 15 minutes in any of them. Dillon doesn’t qualify for KenPom’s national ranks, but he’d be top 25 in the country in offensive rating, nationally-ranked in two-point percentage and top 10 in the country in 3-point percentage.
Belmont’s No. 42 offense will often go as star shooter Tyler Lundblade, Scharnowski, Orme and freshman guard Jack Smiley go, but it has another dimension as a result of what Dillon gives it. He’s yet to start a game, but he always appears to have some sort of impact on the game.
“He’s been huge,” Smith said. “His versatility and Sam's versatility allow us to play both of them together with one of the five men which is a good lineup for us and with you know Nic [McClain] being out for as long as he has been.”
Alexander’s answer also includes the word “huge” in regard to Dillon’s impact down the stretch of Belmont’s regular season championship run, particularly due to his versatility. Dillon’s time is here.
Perhaps his early-season lack of production didn’t indicate that, but this isn’t November or December anymore.
“Once he had some success, those days were history,” Alexander said. “He plays like he belongs.”
