Smith suffers knee injury in international game
It may only be July, but Nebraska got its first bad news of the 2014-15 season this weekend when senior power forward Leslee Smith suffered a knee injury while playing for his native British Virgin Islands National Team in the Caribbean Basketball Association in Tortola, V.I.
Head coach Tim Miles confirmed the injury with HuskerOnline.com and said the team wouldn't know the full extent of the injury until Smith returned to Lincoln for an MRI.
Advertisement
Miles said the tentative date for the MRI would be Wednesday.
Per the Virgin Islands News Online, Smith went down in the second quarter of B.V.I.'s game against the Virgin Islands on Thursday with an apparent left knee injury.
The 6-foot-8, 255-pounder was taken to the locker room for further evaluation and eventually returned to the bench to watch the remainder of the game with his knee heavily wrapped.
Though the severity of the injury remains unknown, Smith told the publication he would definitely miss the remainder of the tournament.
"I am definitely out for the rest of this tournament," Smith said. "It's an unfortunate situation, it isn't something that you could really control, it can happen to anybody at anytime.
"It's just a real unfortunate situation, I really didn't want this to happen, I really don't know what to say, I am kind of overwhelmed about the situation."
Back in 2011, Smith suffered a torn ACL in his right knee that forced him to miss the first seven games of his freshman season at SMU.
After transferring to Seward Country (Kan.) C.C. for his sophomore season, Smith transferred to Nebraska in 2013-14 and averaged 16.8 minutes off the bench in 32 games, scoring 5.4 points with 4.8 rebounds per contest.