Creek to redshirt season, stay active with team

He just underwent his third major surgery in the last 22 months, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at Maurice Creek.

Creek, who had surgery Monday to repair his torn Achilles tendon, addressed the media Wednesday for the first time since the injury. Instead of having a ‘woe is me’ attitude, Creek spoke about his comeback. After all, he has been through this process a couple times already.

“It happened. It’s not the end of the world,” Creek said. “It can’t be something where I put my head down. I’ve got to just take it one step at a time.”

Unlike his first two injuries, this one took place off the court. Creek said he was walking down the stairs in his apartment when he stepped on a stair wrong, causing the back of his left foot to slip out. He felt a snap.

Creek called it a “freak accident” and said he initially thought it was a sprain because he could still walk on it. But after the training staff tried to work on it, Creek said it felt sore, and he knew something was wrong.

IU Coach Tom Crean said Creek’s return for this season is “highly doubtful.”
 
Fortunately for IU, because the injury happened before the season, Crean said he is certain Creek will redshirt and not lose a year of eligibility.

But don’t think Crean wants Creek to alienate himself from the team just because he won’t be in uniform.

“My challenge as the caretaker of this program is to help him grow no matter what,” Crean said. “We’re going to continue to find ways that he can help this team, even when he’s not on the court, that not only help them in the short term and help us in the short term but will help him in the long term with the growth process he’s on.”

Creek’s teammates were present to support him in the Assembly Hall media room Wednesday. But for the rest of the season, those roles will be flipped.

“I look at it as me being a coach,” Creek said. “Like I said, I’ve been through this road before, and I was coaching these guys when I was hurt the last two times.”

The only time Creek hasn’t been recovering from injury at IU was the first part of his freshman campaign when he averaged 16.4 points in the first 12 games he played.

Since Creek was injured in December 2009, he has played in 18 games for the Hoosiers. 

Crean said he’s never seen anybody bitten by the injury bug like Creek.

“There’s some things I know and some things I don’t know, but I’ve never met anybody that has had to deal with that at his age,” Crean said.

Creek repeatedly stressed how his teammates are the ones who are going to get him through yet another rehab process. In addition to the support of his teammates, Creek also received a flurry of condolence tweets and was trending nationally on Twitter following the announcement Monday.

It remains to be seen whether Creek will be able to come back and play without injury for two more years as a Hoosier, but Crean said Creek will be ready to return to the role he once had.

“What he’s dealing with today is one thing, but I just have a strong feeling he’s going to come back in a big way,” Crean said. “I’ve seen how his maturity and his toughness and all of those things have to serve him through these first couple injuries, and I think they’ll do it again.

“There’s a lot left in this story to be written. These are all part of the chapters, there’s no doubt about that. There’s a lot left in his story, and it’s going to be fun to watch him go through it.”