Jurkin’s right leg improving, could return for July

  • 05/15/2011 3:00 pm in

As Indiana fans have shown up in droves to watch the 2012 class this spring, the first recruit to join the class, Peter Jurkin, has yet to step foot on the court with his future Indiana teammates.

The 7-foot Jurkin, a native of Sudan, is still recovering from a stress fracture in his right leg that he sustained last August at adidas Nations in Chicago.

Jurkin was unaware of the severity of his injury until going to a doctor a few months later.

The IU commit played sparingly during the high school season at United Faith Christian Academy in Charlotte as the stress fracture failed to heal completely.

“One of the doctors he went to (in North Carolina) said that it was a stress fracture and said it was OK to play him two minutes a quarter (during the high school season),” Mark Adams, Jurkin’s AAU coach, told Inside the Hall at the adidas May Classic in Bloomington. “And it wasn’t. When he came back here (to Indiana), we took him to St. Vincent’s, they looked at it and he shouldn’t have been playing during the school year.”

The recovery process has been a lengthy one for Jurkin, but the only recipe for a return to 100 percent health is to rest the leg.

“He’s got a bone stimulator now that he uses in the night and it’s starting to grow back and it’s looking better,” Adams said. “By June 15, we’re supposed to bring him back and the doctor thinks it may be healed by then and he’ll spend probably July working to get his leg stronger. He’s lifting, he just can’t do anything with his legs.”

While it’s been speculated that he could return to Indiana Elite for the evaluation period in July and Jurkin has expressed to Adams that he’d like to play, it’s still very much up in the air whether he’ll play this summer.

“Dr. (Steve) Ahlfeld thought maybe a little bit, but I just want him to be healthy for his senior year so I just assume work on his strength of his leg and get it back,” Adams said. “He may play some. We’ll see what the doctor says.”

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