Damion Lee giving Louisville a shot

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - It was two years ago, the night before Thanksgiving at Madison Square Garden, the preseason NIT semifinals, Drexel leading unbeaten Arizona, 27-8, early and still leading by three points midway through the second half. With seniors Chris Fouch and Frantz Massenat along with junior Damion Lee, coach Bruiser Flint had a team that promised to be one of the best in school history.

Then, Lee, while making a move across the lane, tore his right ACL. By the time he was able to play again, Fouch and Massenat were gone. Lee never wavered on his commitment to Drexel, saying he would come back last season, graduate and then play a final season for the Dragons in 2015-16.

So why then is Lee, his game so good Rick Pitino said he would not be shocked if he leads the ACC in scoring, seated in a conference room on the ground floor of the Louisville basketball facility on the last Thursday morning of October, talking about what was and what is?

"After I broke my (right) hand against Northeastern at the end of February, I just took my mind off of everything," Lee said.

He knew he was going to graduate in a few months, but kept thinking, "What if breaking my hand was a sign?"

After the ACL, he never considered anything but Drexel. This time just felt different.

"I tore my ACL, broke my hand, maybe it's a sign to try something new," Lee said. "I fought so hard to come back off that ACL injury, but I didn't talk to anybody about it, thought about it for a couple of weeks. After spring break, I came back to Drexel."

And he made the decision to take advantage of the graduate transfer rule that allowed him to go anywhere to school without having to sit out a year.

"It was one of the hardest things to do, to tell (Flint) that I was leaving," Lee said. "I do want to tell him I'm sorry how everything went down; I could have been more open when I was thinking about leaving. I'm sorry about that, but the opportunity presented itself and this is once in a lifetime to further my career or better myself. I wanted to give myself a little bit more of a challenge. I thank Bruiser Flint and the coaching staff at Drexel for everything."

Flint heard the rumors before he heard from Lee. It hurt at the time, but . . .

"He made his choice," Flint said. "I have no problems with Damion. We talked all the time. We would text each other while we were watching college and pro games, 'Did you see that?' In the end, he's gone. You've got to move on."

Lee and Flint have not talked since the decision, other than texts where Flint would ask whether Lee wanted to speak with certain schools that were interested in him.

Bottom line, Lee wants to play basketball after this season, so he made a life choice. He is also getting his masters in special education paid for.

"Going to two different universities, that's priceless in itself," Lee said.

And the rule is there.

"Coaches have that opportunity to go and they have an opportunity to further their career," Lee said.

The rule has been around for a while, but it really got noticed when Russell Wilson went from North Carolina State to Wisconsin.

"Now look at him," Lee said.

It was never a consideration for Lee - until the second injury.

Lee, a 6-6 wing, scored 1,538 points at Drexel. He had five 30-point games last season while averaging 21.4 points, fourth nationally. He is a career 37 percent three-point shooter with 196 made threes. Last season, he was a ridiculous 173-for-195 (88.7 percent) from the foul line.

Louisville, a terrible shooting team (30.7 percent from three, 66.8 percent from the line), was a missed free throw from the 2015 Final Four. If they had Lee then? "We would have won the national championship," Pitino said.

Lee often finds himself thinking back to that 2013-14 Drexel team, wondering what-if. Arizona started that season 21-0 and finished 33-5, an overtime loss to Wisconsin from the Final Four. And Drexel really outplayed them until Lee got hurt.

"That was pretty tough," Lee said of the season that could have been.

Lee arrived at Louisville this July, so he wasn't there long before a self-described Escort Queen wrote her "book" about wild dormitory stripper/sex parties and made the obligatory TV rounds. What exactly went down or who knew what when might or might not be eventually revealed.

"I didn't even pay attention to any of it, and I still don't," Lee said. "Whatever happens happens. I can't control anything."

He just takes his online classes and adheres to a daily schedule that begins with breakfast, then an individual workout and lift, study hall, a short nap, film room, practice, treatment, dinner, maybe a few video games or a movie.

Louisville, Lee said, "is a lot different than Philly."

The Louisville basketball facility is also a "lot different" from the DAC.

"The practice gym, you can come in whenever you want, 3 in the morning, whenever," Lee said. "Two shooting guns, the weight room's always open. I'm just trying to soak it all in and be in the gym as much as I can."

Lee has one year with Pitino and wants to make the most of it.

"Just to try to get as much knowledge as I can in this one year about life, about basketball, about life after basketball," Lee said of his coach.

Pitino is thrilled to have Lee.

"I feel like I won the Kentucky Derby getting him to come here," Pitino said.

Lee's team has six players between 6-10 and 7-0.

"That's something 'I'm not used to," he said.

Lee grew up in Baltimore watching the ACC. Some of his very good friends played at Duke and Notre Dame.

"It's definitely a blessing," Lee said. "Seeing all those gyms and seeing a lot of my close friends playing in these gyms and to play where they played, it's going to be fun . . . Just the whole atmosphere . . . I kind of wish Maryland was still in the ACC."

That 2014 NCAA Tournament that would have happened at Drexel should be the 2016 NCAA that does happen with Louisville. Lee wants to experience it.

"That was definitely one of the reasons," he said.

And there was that sign that he had done everything he could do at Drexel, that it was time to see what else was out there, what was next.

On Twitter: @DickJerardi