Wake Forest 2018 TBT Team: Nikita Mescheriakov Officially Joins “Wake The Nation”

Welcome to Day 4 of the BSD/Wake The Nation TBT Roster Launch Week. If you’re reading this right now, you’re probably aware of the fact that 3 players on Wake Forest’s first ever TBT team this summer have already been announced. Those players are: LD Williams, Travis McKie, and Justin Gray, and you can read through each of their team announcement articles above by clicking on the names. Today, the stacked Wake Forest alumni roster added another key piece to it’s $2m championship mission in 6’8 PF Nikita Mescheriakov. Come on down, Nikita.

Mescheriakov played two seasons in Winston-Salem after starting his career at Georgetown for coach John Thompson III. He started every game his senior year at Wake Forest and averaged 8.0 PPG and 3.9 RPG while guarding multiple positions on the defensive end. Arguably his best game in Black and Gold came against Duke in the 2011-12 season, putting up 18 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists in a close loss at home. In the final 3 games of his collegiate career, he put up double-digit points, 4+ rebounds, and 4+ assists against Duke, Georgia Tech, and Maryland.

Since graduating from Wake Forest, Nikita has spent the majority of his career for Tsmoki-Minsk, the top club in all of Belarus. The team has won the Belarusian Premier League 9 years in a row and routinely qualifies for European competitions such as the FIBA Europe Cup and Champions League Qualifying Rounds. This season across all competitions Nikita is averaging 20 MPG, 5.9 PPG, and 2.8 RPG on a dominant Tsmoki-Minsk team that went 32-4 in the regular season of the Belarusian Premier League. They also play in the VTB United League in Russia, which is known for being one of the more competitive leagues in all of Europe. Here was Nikita getting a shoutout from the official VTB League Twitter account just a couple weeks back for a vicious block.

Nikita will bring a stretch 4 option to Coach Lepore and “Wake The Nation” and should be able to find ways to contribute on both sides of the ball for this team. His experience playing against some of Europe’s best in continental competitions such as the European Champions League will be a big bonus for the squad this summer. Overall, I’m very excited to see Nikita back in Demon Deacon colors and to see how he can help this team push to its ultimate goal of a TBT title.

PSA: If you haven’t become a “Supporter” on the Official TBT site of the Wake Forest team, sign up here. It’s free, takes 10 seconds, and the Top 9 vote-getting teams of the South Region are automatically selected for the tournament. Help some of your favorite Deacon stars on “Wake The Nation” get a bid to one of the best sporting events of the summer here.

Official “Wake The Nation” TBT Site: https://thetournament.com/teams/wake-nation-wake-forest-alumni