Drexel's Lee undaunted after latest injury

Drexel's star came out with his hand cast. A freshman was on crutches, his knee sprained from slipping on a wet spot the day before at practice. One Dragons player wasn't there at all for his Senior Day ceremony because he'd had knee surgery the day before. That sums up your 2014-15 Drexel Dragons. Hopefully, nobody gets hurt at the team banquet.

Injuries to star players naturally hit people hardest. All broken bones and ligament tears simply aren't created equal. A Derrick Rose goes down and it's not just Chicago Bulls fans that shake their heads.

Drexel's Damion Lee is out for the year? Again? Anyone paying attention to local basketball winced at this week's news.

Back from a ligament tear in his knee that made Lee miss most of last season, the junior guard had been having a phenomenal year, averaging 21.4 points.

"To say I surprised other people, that's one thing," Lee said Thursday afternoon, sitting in the athletic office. "But I think I really surprised myself in how I came out and played this year."

Later on, Dragons coach Bruiser Flint put it this way: "He should be MVP of this league. We went through a lot of things. He put this team on his back."

Flint being Flint, he also couldn't resist a jibe at his star, "I told him he broke his hand because he shot every shot."

Lee was out there Thursday night watching the Dragons fall to Delaware, 58-44. Last year's ACL tear means he has another year of eligibility. Surgery, performed Wednesday, put three screws in his right hand. Lee is told he'll be out six weeks.

If that doesn't effectively end Drexel's season, it would be the biggest shocker of all. The Dragons had finally gotten most of the rest of their guys back on the court, the ones that aren't out for the year, and a six-game winning streak had followed. The Colonial Athletic Association tournament looks completely up for grabs, so why not Drexel?

"I knew that it was something serious when it happened," Lee said. This was early in Saturday's game at Northeastern, Drexel's last one before Thursday. Lee could really it on a free throw right after it happened. A knuckle was swollen, and his follow-through wasn't right. He had to adjust it.

He kept going, still scored 30 points. Afterward, he saw the Northeastern doctors, "they didn't know how I played," Lee said. An X-ray that night confirmed the fracture, although Lee declines to curse his fate.

"I'm actually not as down or as sad as people would think," Lee said. "I know all injuries are bad; it's something you will learn from. The ACL, I was out nine months to a year; this is only six weeks."

When Lee hit a screen this season, he knew all defenders were staying with him. He remembers one time when he drove into the lane, jump-stopping, then pump-faking. There were four defenders all around him. That was the way it was.

Lee had FaceTimed earlier in the day with former Dragons guard Chris Fouch, now playing in Slovenia. Fouch, who set his own standards for dealing with injuries during his Drexel career - which turned into a rare six-year career - asked about Lee's outlook, and pointed out Lee had gone through "the worst injury a basketball player can go through." They talked about using this time to work on his left hand.

Lee said the right things about how he's only one player on one team, that basketball is a team sport - next man up, that kind of thing. "I feel like, with or without me, I still have confidence that we can make a run at this thing."

The right thing to say, but the hits just keep coming on Market Street. Thursday morning, the news was out that freshman guard Sammy Mojica, who had been playing good ball lately, had a sprained knee suffered in practice - "kid slips on a wet spot," Flint said. The Dragons were down to seven usable bodies.

"You're asking guys to do things - some ain't ready to do it, some can't," Flint said.

The guy who can do a lot of things as well as any college player in the city is forced to look at his season in the past tense. Lee at least could hang his hat on exceeding his own expectations. A cast didn't change that.