by Kent Sterling
The sad saga of Maurice Creek has ended in Bloomington
The math is now swinging in the opposite direction as the Indiana Hoosiers will for a time have one more scholarship available than people hoping to claim it, as Indiana announced today that Maurice Creek will forego his last year of eligibility in Bloomington to play closer to his home in Maryland, where he has a child.
Creek will be eligible to play immediately at a school where he can start, play increased minutes, and help raise his child.
Creek’s career started very strongly as he was the one player as a freshman in 2009 who could be counted on for offense. He averaged 16.4 points, and was the best player on the floor during the game against Kentucky that featured John Wall, Eric Bledsoe, Patrick Patterson, DeMarcus Cousins, DeAndre Liggins, and Darius Miller among others. His 31 points led all scorers as he single-handedly kept the Hoosiers in the game into the early portions of the second half At the end of the non-conference season, Creek suffered a catastrophic knee injury, and was never quite the same.
Creek averaged just short of eight minutes in 24 games in 2012-2013, averaging 1.8 points.
His story in Bloomington will always focus on what might have been. Unable to play at the pre-injury level, it was humane and decent for Crean to give Creek an accurate appraisal of his future in Bloomington.
The question now becomes what Crean will choose to do with that scholarship. He can bank it for 2014-2015, or look for a seventh member of the incoming freshman class.
Bank it! There is no logical reason to have seven incoming freshman. 2014 could be another stacked class to accompany the will-be-juniors of Ferrell, Hollowell and Perea. Sophomores on that squad could be Troy Williams and Noah Vonleh. Ensuring a top 5 recruiting class to go along with that experience seems like a wise decision.
I’d be much more willing to give Crean the benefit of the doubt for this one if I wasn’t already wrestling with the Abell thing. The fans who buy all this stuff at face value kind of reminds me of the battered wife who keeps making excuses for her tormentor husband. You get too many bruises and people stop believing you keep falling down or running into doors.
It would be much more tolerable if CTC would just say, “I advised Creek to move on. This program has made a whole lot of offers over the next couple of years, and I seriously didn’t see him being as much value to the program as his scholarship would be.” That is hard-line approach, but at least it is totally honest (assuming there is something to my suspicions).
I edited the original piece to include the reason Creek is leaving – to be closer to his child. That makes this being Creek’s decision pretty obvious.
Well, that changes things . . . I guess. I am still a little cautious, but at least that makes a lot more sense to me. Thanks for the edit.
Godspeed Maurice Creek. May fate be on your side in every way for a change. Tough series of injuries for a young man to deal with.