Everybody has their own opinion on Maurice Creek, and that’s fine. But it’s impossible to talk about his career at Indiana without using the word “unfair” or without discussing what could have been.

In reality, Creek helped the Hoosiers very little on the court after his first year and half with the Hoosiers. It wasn’t his fault and he did everything he could to contribute, but his body never could hold up long enough for him to make any real impact.

It’s not like he didn’t want it bad enough or didn’t work to have success. If you spent any amount of time around the Indiana campus over the last four years, you likely witnessed Creek’s love for the game of basketball. He regularly carried a ball with him when he walked around campus, and he spent considerable time shooting around at the HPER and SRSC facilities during the team’s offseason.

Creek loves the game. The game just hasn’t always loved him back.

It’s unfortunate, too, considering the talented player we’re talking about. Some people forget how good Creek was as a freshman, when he scored 31 points on a highly-ranked Kentucky team that consisted of a backcourt of John Wall and Eric Bledsoe.

He averaged 16.4 points per game that season, shooting 53 percent from the field and 45 percent from beyond the arc. And that came on a team that won only 10 games.

He was a likely on-and-done talent, maybe two-and-done. He should be playing in his second or third NBA season right now. Instead, he’s trying to find another school where he can use his last year of eligibility and begin working on a graduate degree.

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Welcome to “That’s A Wrap,” our player-by-player recap of the 2012-2013 Indiana Hoosiers. Today: Maurice Creek.

Creek (24 games): 1.8 ppg, 0.9 rpg, 0.4 apg, 28.8% FG, 32.3% 3PFG, 80.0% FT in 7.8 minutes per game.

For the first time in his IU career, Maurice Creek played in more than 20 games and despite a brief midseason foot problem, the redshirt junior also finished the season healthy for the first time as a Hoosier.

For most players, neither feat would be something to write home about, but for Creek, this was progress after undergoing three major surgeries in 22 months.

The Oxon Hill, Maryland native was mostly used in a role as a shooter off the bench, but a spot in the regular rotation never materialized as he struggled to find his shot for a good part of the season.

The majority of his minutes came in the non-conference portion of IU’s schedule as he logged seven games of 10 or more minutes over the first nine games. By the time Big Ten played rolled around, Creek fell out of the rotation and had just one game (Purdue at home) where he registered more than one field goal.

But as we mentioned earlier, there are still positives to be gleaned from Creek’s 2012-2013 campaign. He finished the season healthy for the first time in his IU career. And there’s hope that with another offseason of work, he’ll continue to make progress and perhaps even increase his role on next year’s team. Indiana will be very young in its backcourt next fall and Creek, who will be entering his fifth year in the program, can fill a role as a leader and also a mentor to IU’s freshman class.

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