Throughout his career, Lee Scruggs seemed to be close to making it to the top. Sometimes, life gets in the way.

A gifted 6-11 forward, Scruggs grew up in the western North Carolina town of Franklin (pop: 2,845), where he was cut from his high school basketball team as a freshman. Two years later, a strong junior season propelled Scruggs into the national recruiting news, where Clemson, Ohio State, and Western Carolina recruited him. Scruggs seemed headed to Western Carolina before his SAT's fell short of the NCAA minimum, sending him instead to Daytona Beach (FL) Community College, where he averaged 17.9 points, 10.9 rebounds, and 4.1 blocks over two seasons.

With junior college concluding, Scruggs figured to be back in the recruiting circles, but he failed to graduate on time at Daytona. By then, Georgetown had taken an interest, but Scruggs missed the first semester of his junior year as a result and was not able to join the Hoyas team until the end of December.

When he arrived, Scruggs' contributions were minimal, failing to score in four of his first five games. Soon, however, his unique combination of height and mobility started to play to the Hoyas' favor, and he started in 16 of the team's final 25 games. A 23 point, 13 rebound game versus Pittsburgh was among his best individual performance. Into March, Scruggs scored 20 points and nine rebounds to help Georgetown upset #11 Syracuse in the quarterfinals of the Big East tournament, and he followed it up with 27 points and 10 rebounds against Connecticut in the semifinal. He was named to the all-tournament team that year and finished with a 10.7 ppg average for the season.

With a promising senior season awaiting him, the all-Big East candidate was felled by poor grades at year's end and missed the 2000 fall semester as a result.

"Lee allowed himself to be distracted from academic concerns last spring by both his late season play and by the possibilities of the NBA draft," said coach Craig Esherick in a formal press release, but in a more candid moment told The HOYA that "if people don't meet [Georgetown's] standards, they're not going to be eligible. And all of that was fully explained to Lee many times, very many times, until I got blue in the face. It's unfortunate, but he had ample warning."

Scruggs returned in late December but never started a game the remainder of the season. Platooning with freshman forward Mike Sweetney at power forward, Scruggs had some promising games but none were as consistent as the end of his junior season, and his thee point shooting rarely got above 33 percent. Scruggs finished eighth in scoring with a 7.5 ppg average.

Had he played two full seasons at the level to which he was capable, and certainly if he had four years of major college experience, Scruggs would likely have been an NBA draft candidate, but two semesters out of four at Georgetown wasn't going to be enough. Following graduation, he moved on to the newly founded NBA Developmental league in Asheville, NC, where he played two seasons and, for a time, competed alongside former Georgetown guard Kenny Brunner, though the two never played together in college. Asheville went on to win D-League titles in 2004 and 2005, but Scruggs had already left for the international circuit, playing in Venezuela, Finland, China, and Slovakia before finishing his pro career in Canada in 2012.

Now retired, Scruggs lives in his home town of Franklin, NC.