By Annie Moore–
Damion Lee may appear to some as a stop gap in what would otherwise be a rebuilding year for this Louisville basketball team. But a more accurate description of Lee would be the leader all of this young talent needs. Lee will be the player these players point to in two or three years as someone who helped mold them, and Lee will be the fan favorite to a Louisville program and its fans, who are fundamentally against the one-and-done principle.
For those under the rock inhabitants, Lee transferred from Drexel this year after being the fourth-leading scorer as a junior and completing his degree in humanities and social science. While at Drexel, Lee was an integral part of the basketball program. He averaged 38.1 minutes per game and had more than 20 points in 14 of his 27 games last season.
This year, Lee steps up to the big stage for college basketball and is already emerging as the seasoned, veteran leader everyone hoped he’d be. In the team’s second Red/White Scrimmage, Lee had 33 points on 10-for-20 shooting and 13 rebounds. It is pretty clear after watching him play only a handful of times that he will be a huge driving force for this offense.
Just as important—and perhaps maybe more so—will be the leadership role Lee will play off the court. When Head Coach Rick Pitino was sidelined for ACC Media Days on legal council, the Cardinals dispatched Lee and teammate Trey Lewis.
While this may have seemed unfair to these new members of the program, they handled it with grace and class. The pair never seemed curt or dismissive or answered “no comment” to questions about incidents that didn’t pertain to them. Lee instead, took the opportunity to praise the school’s athletic program as a whole and the blue collar mentality that draws him to Louisville.
“The personality of the program and everyone who’s within the Louisville program—it doesn’t matter what sport it is, a lot of teams have this hashtag #bcm, blue collar mentality” Lee said. “Basically, we don’t necessarily have all the bells and whistles that all the other schools may have, but we pick up our lunch pail, and we go to work every single day.”
One budding friendship in that workforce is Lee and freshman teammate Deng Adel. Lee spoke after the second scrimmage about how Adel reached out to him before the season and really impressed him. Lee spoke about challenging each other on the court and being close off the court. That duo will certainly be pleasing to Cardinal fans down the stretch of ACC play this season.
The soft-spoken guard from Maryland may not seem like the face of a program to some, but spending five minutes watching his game or listening to him speak, it becomes evident that he will be the key to the 2015-16 Cardinals success. As good as Lee is on the court, he is better at presenting a mature, composed front as one of the true captains of this team.
