MORGANTOWN - The irony was not lost upon Da'Sean Butler. But then again, neither was the reality.

There was Butler last weekend, hobbling around on a set of crutches and throwing out the ceremonial first pitch for a youth baseball league in Bridgeport. It wasn't just any group of kids, though, but rather the participants in the Challenger League for kids with handicaps.

"Yeah, me just hobbling out there was pretty funny,'' Butler said. "But I'm just a guy who has to use crutches for a while. That's nothing compared to doing what some of those kids do their whole lives.''

Suffice it to say that nothing that has happened to Butler in the past month has dampened either his sense of humor or his sense of perspective. But to go so far as to say that it hasn't been a challenge would be a stretch.

It was on April 3 that Butler went crashing to the floor at the Final Four in Indianapolis, both he and his future lying on a Lucas Oil Stadium basketball floor in a heap. The third-leading scorer in West Virginia basketball history, just nine minutes away from the end of his college career and the prospect of NBA riches, tore the ACL, sprained the MCL and bruised two bones in his left knee in the Mountaineers' national semifinal loss to Duke.

What has followed is major reconstructive knee surgery in Florida less than a week later, daily rehab, the occasional public appearance and, yes, a few doubts.

"There's always maybe one or two days every two weeks where rehab gets so bad that I'll just sit down and think, 'Man, I hate this,' '' Butler said. "But you have to keep your faith and understand that everything happens for a reason. It's going to be painful, but you have to go with it and just roll with the punches.

"I have my days when I think, 'OK, I don't want to play basketball anymore. It's time to start thinking about coaching so I can get this ice off my knee.' But if I stick it out it's going to make me a tougher person and a player. But I'll look back on it one day and know that if I can take it, I mean anybody can take it. I saw a girl the other day who tore hers the same time I tore mine and she's walking. I was jealous. She's tougher than I am.''

Truth be told, Butler is walking a bit, too. In fact, he's doing it just a little better than he sometimes likes to lead on. He walked into a Chinese buffet restaurant in Morgantown Monday evening on his well-worn crutches and just smiled.

"I don't need them, but if I'm walking no one will go get my food for me,'' he joked. "[His walk] looks a little awkward, but I'm getting better. It's a process.''

The real process for Butler, though, is the one in the big picture. Rehabilitating a reconstructed knee is a long and tedious process, one that in Butler's case he's been told will take six months. There are baby steps all along the way, but the ultimate goal is to simply return him to where he was before his last college game - namely as an NBA prospect.

The NBA draft is June 24 and before his knee buckled on him Butler had worked himself into a pretty good position. Long considered a bit of a reach for NBA teams because at 6-foot-7 he has both tweener size and skills (not big enough to play in the frontcourt and without the dead-eye shot and ball skills of a guard), Butler's stock rose steadily with his senior-season performance. In leading West Virginia to its best season in more than a half century, Butler eased many of those concerns by simply proving that he can play the game and is a winner.

Many mock NBA drafts had Butler as a late-first-round pick prior to his injury. At the worst, he was certain to be selected in one of the draft's two rounds. Had he played his way into the first round - now is the time when healthy players are beginning individual workouts that will ultimately decide their draft status - it would have meant a guaranteed contract for two years and no less than $1.7 million.

Now, though, all that seems iffy. Butler has an agent, but he is obviously unable to work out for teams. He also missed the Portsmouth Invitational last month, where NBA scouts judge senior talent on a broader scale.

But Butler remains hopeful.

"I'm not really in the loop on most of that stuff, but what I hear is nothing but positives,'' Butler said. "Teams have called my trainers and asked me to fill out things. My agent went to Portsmouth and talked to pretty much every single NBA scout and they all told him not to worry about it, that I'll be drafted. And that's not bad at all.''

Almost every player's draft stock is in flux right now, though. With seven weeks remaining before the draft, a lot of things can change for both Butler and the teams selecting , including what teams need, how Butler's rehab goes and how other players fare in workouts. Butler understands that.

"By the end of the day, things will change. They always do,'' Butler said. "One day I'm not running, the next day I am. But if things don't work out in the draft, then I'll just find another route.''

Because things will change, those mock drafts are generally not worth the time it takes to invent them. Still, it is worth noting that after Butler's injury he either slipped down or disappeared all together. Again, those doing the mock drafts aren't actually drafting anyone, and teams could have a far different perspective on Butler. But it is a virtual certainty that anyone considering him as a possible first-rounder before the injury is not doing so now, not with guaranteed money at stake.

"You can't help but look at the reality of the situation, which in my case was that I had worked myself into something and then I lost it,'' Butler said. "But I always look at the positives of everything. No, I'm not going to get guaranteed money right off the bat, but even if I just go and get a one-year contract and work hard and they keep me, then I get guaranteed money the next year. It's all up to me.''

And so Butler is taking the bull by the horns. He's doing his rehab and staying positive and just waiting to see what happens.

He has come to grips with it all, too.

"Oh, yeah. That happened after about two days of crying,'' Butler said. "It happened and I'm past it and I know what I need to do.''

"I'm just attacking the rehab and going after it. There are some things that you can't do and that's tough for me. I've never been hurt and I keep hearing all the things that I'm not supposed to do. It kind of cripples you a little bit in the head because I've never been told I can't do something.''

Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.