[3] Queenan was an undersized center in high school, standing at 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m), but then-assistant Lehigh coach Fran McCaffery signed him to play for the Mountain Hawks and turned him into a shooting guard/small forward[1] (toward the end of Queenan's career at Lehigh, McCaffery said, "You wouldn't believe how many coaches told me Daren couldn't play for them.
[1] Queenan led the Engineers to the school's first-ever appearance in the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship as a freshman in 1985, then guided them to a second berth in 1988.
He was later cut because teams were not willing to risk signing a mid-sized player coming from a small, unestablished school (basketball-wise) such as Lehigh.
[1][5] He spent the first couple years after graduating playing in the Continental Basketball Association and even won the CBA Dunk Contest in 1989 as a member of the Charleston Gunners.
[5] After two failed NBA tryouts with the Houston Rockets and Detroit Pistons, Queenan realized that overseas was his most viable professional basketball option.