HARTFORD — Rick Byrd, the longtime Belmont coach, began hearing rumors before the season began. Belmont had played Murray State, an Ohio Valley Conference rival, twice last season, and Byrd knew that Ja Morant, then a freshman, was a perfectly solid player.

But then Byrd and his staff started getting the word-of-mouth from preseason workouts, Byrd said Friday in a telephone interview. Morant was not just solid. He was the best player in the league, they heard. In fact, after the season, he would be an N.B.A. draft pick. Make that an N.B.A. lottery pick.

“It was hard to believe,” Byrd said, “because he was the third wheel on that team at best, really.”

“He just was a guy,” Byrd added. “You knew you didn’t want him in the open floor on the break. You knew he could see the floor and pass the ball. But we went under all his strong screens” — that is, on pick-and-rolls, Belmont dared Morant to shoot.

Now Byrd is a believer, along with everyone else, and not just because Morant led Murray State to the conference championship over Belmont this month. Morant has emerged as college basketball’s most exciting player this side of Duke’s Zion Williamson, the transcendent freshman who may well turn out to be the only player taken ahead of Morant in June’s N.B.A. draft. Morant is eighth in Division I in scoring, with 24.4 points a game, and first in assists, with 10.2.