Hoosier Player Profiles: Maurice Creek

Maurice Creek – Junior

Hargrave Military Academy – Oxon Hill, Maryland

6’5" – 195 lbs. 

Mo Creek is a sad story to try and compose as he has face three straight season ending injuries since coming to Bloomington. The worst part about those injuries is that all of them have been what could be considered "freak injuries". Not even Robbie Hummel has been as unlucky as Creek in battling the injury bug. Both have lost a huge part of promising college careers to events that were out of their control and now both will have a lot to prove to continue their careers past the college game.

Creek came out of Hargrave Military Academy averaging 18 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks a game as a senior. He was the second highest touted player of his class that included top 150 recruits in Elston, Watford and Hulls. His average ranking among the big three was 55^th in the nation (Watford was 44^th). All in all between Watford and Creek they were both expected to be the main contributors quickly with Creek being the most college ready from day one. Unfortunately the previously stated injuries wrecked his freshman year.

In 2009 he stated the first 12 games of the season as a freshman before succumbing to a fractured left kneecap. Before the injury he was the top scoring freshman in the nation with an average of 17.3 points a game, including dropping 31 points on the highly touted Kentucky Wildcats. He was easily the go to guy and the best player available to pull IU out of their couple year funk. Unfortunately that would have to wait until his sophomore year. 

Last year he played in 18 games and started in 13 as he was still not 100% from the injury. Playing at roughly 70-75% health he averaged 20 minutes and 8.3 points a game. His highlight game would have been against Boston College where he was able to pour in 15 points. He made it into three Big Ten games last year before being dropped by another knee injury. This time he suffered a stress fracture in the patella of his right knee. With it coming midway through the season with an injury that often requires a lot of recovery time it was in question whether he would be able to start this year healthy. Tragically that question was answered 2 weeks ago, no.

For the third time in 22 months, Mo Creek suffered a season ending injury. Indiana announced on October 9^th that Creek had surgery to repain a torn left Achilles tendon suffered from a non-basketball event. Mentally this has to be devastating for Creek and will provide a challenge for him to get back to the game at all. This season being gone before it started Creek now has to focus exclusively on rehab not only physically but mentally. He showed flashes of his old self as a sophomore but for the majority of his floor time he looked timid and uncertain. That will be the key to Creek’s recovery is the mental mindset. Hopefully he shows he can do it. If we go by twitter it appears that optimism is his best quality as he reassured Hoosier Nation that it’ll all be OK. "One thing I ask from everyone IS NOT TO SHED NO TEARS… I LOVE YALL… THIS IS JUST ANOTHER BUMP IN THE ROAD…I WILL BE BACK…BELIEVE THAT." Let’s hope so Mo, let’s hope so.