After a caller requested an update on Creek during Crean’s Monday evening radio show with Don Fisher, the IU coach provided the following update:

“He’s been doing very well. He had a great first semester, I know that doesn’t have anything to do with his injury, but he’s continued to work very hard academically. He’s ahead of schedule. He’s still definitely a ways away from being on the court and being able to work out on the court in a hard fashion. He put up 205 six times the other day, which is real progress there. I think his body will continue to really grow. He’s on all of our trips. We have him doing different statistics for us during the games just trying to help him really learn the leadership that he’s gotta have to be successful moving forward.”

Creek, who was leading all freshmen nationally in scoring at the time of his injury, averaged 16.4 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 1.8 apg and 1.4 spg in 12 contests.

So where did he go?

Last season’s leading scorer, it made sense when Dumes’ numbers came down in 2009 with the influx of fresh talent. And an injury to begin the season kept him from fighting for a starting place and visibly hindered his ability to get into an offensive rhythm once he was healthy.

But Dumes, who averaged 12.7 points per game last season, has seen that average fall by more than half, and his minutes-per-game average has been reduced almost as much. Worse, Dumes has lost nearly nine points off his overall field-goal percentage from last season to this one, and his 3-point shooting is down from 38.1 percent to 32.6 percent through 14 games.

Of course, none of this looked like more than an unexplained anomaly until Maurice Creek was lost for the season, cutting more than 16 points and the Hoosiers’ best offensive option out of the gameplan. And yet, in the two games since Creek’s injury, that open starting spot has gone to Jordan Hulls, not Dumes.

He’s had his moments, including a first-half performance against Michigan that included three 3-pointers and a pair of assists. And in fairness, while his points and minutes are down, Dumes’ rebounding and assist numbers have only decreased marginally, and he’s cut his turnover numbers — astronomically high at 3.1 per game a year ago — nearly in half.

But where he’s most valuable, Dumes just hasn’t been able to find the range on his 3-point shot, (which, you might remember, is actually rather deep) and some of his decisions around the basket have looked forced. Put more simply: Dumes just doesn’t look comfortable or in rhythm offensively.

The injury, which affected his minutes early in the season, probably kept him from carving out a place for himself in this offense before the mold hardened. And it’s understandable to think that going from starter to first or second bench option is going throw a wrench into things, too.

But Wednesday night, when the Buckeyes were scoring and Indiana wasn’t, the Hoosiers needed someone to stop the bleeding, someone to hit a couple big shots and open the game back up.

Dumes could have been that player — he was at times last season. And I promise you, Wednesday’s script will repeat itself more than once before this season ends.

It’s undoubtedly been a twisted road from Decatur Central High School to Ypsilanti, Mich., to Vincennes University to Bloomington, but this is Dumes’ last chance to find the magic.

It doesn’t matter how he does it, but he’d better do it soon.

This will be a two-parter. Part 1 will dive into win expectations now that Creek is done for the season. Part 2 will look at some potential new starting lineups.

Onward:

EXPECTATIONS.

After IU beat Pitt and lost to Kentucky, I wrote the Hoosiers were on track for 10-14 wins this season. Is this still possible? I’m not so sure anymore. Besides Iowa at home on Feb. 4, there’s no game on the schedule where IU looks like a favorite. But did anyone expect the Hoosiers to go into the Garden and win? No. And I think unlike last year, home-court advantage is going to mean a little more, and IU can still steal a couple wins at Assembly Hall. Thursday’s game against Michigan is one of these games, but it just would have been easier with Creek on the court.

So if we’re going to re-adjust for the absence of Creek, we’re likely going to have to bring down the win-total range. As much as it pains me to put single digits up on the board, IU is now probably looking at an 8-12 win season. Other guys can step up, sure. But a team like this — one without a lot of margin for error to begin with — losing their leading scorer is a big blow. It just is. And it’s not just for the team, but for Creek himself. He loses out on the valuable experience of traversing through a Big Ten season as a freshman, and really only has Maryland, Kentucky, Ole Miss and Pitt as big games to speak of.

NEW STARTING LINEUPS.

Hulls, Rivers, Jones, Watford, Pritchard.

IU has two ball-handlers in the backcourt, and can look to Jones and Watford as its go-to scorers. But this probably isn’t the way to go. Hulls needs to backup Rivers or vice versa; Daniel Moore shouldn’t be the first guy off the bench to spell either ballhandler. And with both Hulls and Rivers on the floor to start the game, this puts IU at a disadvantage offensively, as neither has proven to be that effective of a scorer.

Rivers, Jones, Watford, Elston, Pritchard.

The big lineup. Elston plays within himself and can score in a variety of ways. He’s also snatching 4.4 boards per game. But he’s been a nice spark off the bench, and IU is now dealing with Tijan Jobe or Bobby Capobianco as the first size guy to sub in. That’s a big drop off.

Rivers, Dumes, Jones, Watford, Pritchard.

This offers the most risk-reward. Dumes has been erratic at times, but there’s no one on the bench currently that can be inserted into the starting lineup and fill in the scoring void like him. In some games, this might prove awful, if Dumes is jacking threes with little to show for it. But on those nights when he’s on, Dumes can put in those 16-17 points Creek was. Dumes’ experience and defense will also prove valuable.

This lineup scares me a little, but having Hulls and Elston as the first options off the bench makes the most sense to me. Vote yes on Dumes to the starting lineup.

What does everyone else think?

Indiana University men’s basketball coach Tom Crean has announced that freshman guard Maurice Creek (Oxon Hill, Maryland/Hargrave Military Academy) underwent surgery today to repair damage to his left knee, which was injured Monday night in a game against Bryant.

“In visiting with Dr. Steve Ahlfeld, the surgery went very well and we expect a full recovery,” said Crean. “His rehabilitation will start as soon as possible.”

Creek, who leads the Hoosiers averaging 16.4 points, is not expected to return to the lineup this season.

“After spending time with Maurice and his family tonight, it is clear they are very touched by all the support they have received from fans and friends across the country,” Crean added.

Ryan will chime in later today with his thoughts on how the loss of Creek will affect the rest of Indiana’s season and I’ll be heading to Hamilton Heights this morning to check out a member of IU’s 2011 recruiting class, guard Austin Etherington.

“I’ll start with an update on Maurice (Creek), he has a fracture of his left knee and will have surgery tomorrow. I am in the process of getting his parents here so they can be here for the surgery. I don’t have many more updates than that. He is a very, very special young man. It’s gut-wrenching in so many fronts when you see a young man like that go down, who works as hard as he does. It’s a little different for us as the Crean’s and for the coaches because he was probably going to be with us where ever we were at, whether it was Marquette or here at Indiana.”

“For him to come with us here sight unseen, and commit four months before he ever saw the campus, that’s a special young man from a special family. Obviously our number one concern is that everything goes well throughout that surgery and I have great confidence that it will. I told the players this is one of the reasons that you come to Indiana that you hope you never have to use – the professional care that you get when you come to a school like Indiana. With the resources that we have here, it’s tremendous. He is in great hands there.”

“Our team certainly feels for him. They had a very good performance tonight. They did a lot of really good things. Obviously we are playing a team that is going through growing pains and doesn’t have a great record, but when you hold a team to 25 percent from the field, and 18 percent from the three-point line, it’s really about what your team is doing. We needed to have a game like that and we had a game like that. More importantly than that, they really, really feel for their teammate, and as a coach you hate to ever see anyone go through that. But also as a coach and a leader of the program, you know that you have a program on the right path, when they care that way about their teammate. They are going to have to mature.”

“I was asked a question from John Laskowski, what the difference going into the Big Ten, and I said, well the biggest fear is the maturity you have to have moving forward and now that maturity is going to get tested even more. Not just because he’s the third-leading scoring freshman in the country, but because Maurice Creek on the court brings confidence because of his athleticism, talent, and his ability to score. That’s what great players do, they bring confidence to their teammates. Now, we are going to have to find confidence from one another. We will have to continue to find that confidence from our crowd. They are stunned right now, but then they are going to be stung. We said to the team, in football they talk about next man up and it’s not a situation here where one individual is going to come in and get 18 points a game, everybody has to do more and that’s the bottom line.”

If there was anything Indiana needed to key on in this game, anything Tom Crean likely would be pleased to see, it was a good start by the Hoosiers. I know this is Bryant College, a team that’s only entering its third season as a D-I school, a team that’s now 0-13, but the Hoosiers’ good start — well, save for those six turnovers in the first 10:30 — was so crucial to this team’s overall makeup after their atrocious first half against Loyola (Md.) last week.

Heading into Big Ten play Thursday against Michigan, this young team needed a bit of a confidence boost, and going into the locker room with a 45-17 lead did just that. Jordan Hulls was solid in his start — I know Jordy has been playing well off the bench, but anyone else thinking Jeremiah Rivers’ rough game last time out had anything to do with him riding the pine to start? — and Tom Pritchard continued to return to form by bruising down low, getting fouled and getting to the line. He only hit 3-of-9 from the charity stripe, but it’s encouraging to see he got there that many times. He finished the game with 11 points and eight boards, and if he can keep up that kind of production, that starting spot should remain his. I love Derek Elston, but his energy is perfect in a sixth-man role.

IU also shot well from three-point land making 9-of-22 for 40.9 percent. And it was a team effort on the offensive end: four other guys scored in double figures besides Pritchard, as Christian Watford led the way with 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting. Verdell Jones also had 15, Devan Dumes added 12 and Hulls had 12 as well.

Other than that, it’s sort of hard to glean much out of this one. No offense to Bryant, but they were such an inferior opponent and it was so out of hand in the second half — IU did win by 48 points tonight, after all — what we saw might not be all that telling of how the Hoosiers are set up heading into Big Ten play.

THE BAD AND UGLY: MAURICE CREEK’S INJURY.

There are injuries you know are bad out the gate. A guy lands wrong, goes down instantly, he clutches the limb in question, and he lays there, writing and writhing and writhing in pain.

That wasn’t the case with Creek tonight. It was slow moving. As he came down on his legs after he was fouled on the layup, Creek barreled a little, fell, then did a bit of a somersault into the row of photographers. But as he tumbled back over and righted himself on the court, he clutched his left knee and began the writhing.

Yet, he remained mostly calm as the training staff attended to him.

But when Tom Crean came out onto the court, you knew it wasn’t good. And when subsequent replays seemed to indicate his knee had popped out of place, you knew it might be worse. And when the stretcher made it’s way on the court, you knew it was really bad.

Initial indications were that Creek had a dislocated knee. But now it’s been reported that Creek has a fractured knee, he’ll have surgery and is out for the season.

I don’t need to tell you this, but this is a huge blow for the Hoosiers. Creek was the team’s leading scorer, the third-leading scorer in the Big Ten and the leading freshman scorer in the nation at 17.6 ppg entering tonight’s game.

Best of luck on the surgery, Mo.

Some other observations:

+ Anyone else have to do a double-take on Bryant’s black and gold unis? IU could have been playing Purdue for all I knew.

+ Bawa Muniru got in somewhat early in the first half, and you wonder if he’s starting to show a little bit of improvement in practice to warrant that. During the second half, he had a nice block, something we’ve looked for, but haven’t seen much of yet.

+ Rivers got a haircut. Lookin’ good:

Update #2: In his postgame press conference, Indiana coach Tom Crean confirmed that Maurice Creek will have season-ending surgery on his fractured left knee on Tuesday. Team physician Dr. Steve Ahlfeld will perform the procedure in Indianapolis.

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Update: On his postgame radio interview with Don Fischer, Indiana coach Tom Crean stated that Maurice Creek suffered a left knee fracture and will require surgery. Herald-Times Sports Editor Chris Korman is also reporting the same information via Twitter.

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Indiana beat Bryant 90-42 on Monday night in its final pre-conference game. But the story of the game was the left knee injury freshman guard Maurice Creek suffered with 15:26 remaining in the second half. The 6-5 freshman from Oxon Hill (MD) entered the game as the Big Ten’s third-leading scorer at 17.6 ppg.

On a fast break, Creek was fouled going up for a layup and suffered an injury to his left knee. This picture, taken by Chris Howell of The Herald-Times (high resolution version available here), tells the story of just how serious this injury may be. Verdell Jones is having a hard time even looking and Derek Elston and Tom Pritchard both appear shocked. Creek was taken off the floor on a stretcher.

We’ll have more on Creek’s injury as soon as there is word from Assembly Hall.

I started this game a bit late, so I had to play catchup on DVR. Because I always need to have my laptop open — always, always — I caught one of Alex’s Twitter updates that said IU had cut the lead to 11 with just under 12 minutes to go. At the time, I had just started the second half, and as the half wore on I became increasingly shocked by this fact: after all, IU showed no signs of really putting a dent into Loyola’s lead. They still trailed by 20 with 14:10 to go, and though they were taking care of the ball better — there was only one turnover in the first seven minutes of the second half — Loyola was hitting their shots, and IU wasn’t able to inch any closer.

But then the barrage hit. Maurice Creek knocked down two threes, Verdell Jones hit another, Creek hit a layup, got fouled and hit the free throw, Jones hit two free throws off a Creek steal, and suddenly the Hoosiers were only down six with 10:18 to go.

Another big part of IU’s comeback? Tom Pritchard. In the second half, he really reminded me of the Pritch of old: he was gobbling up rebounds, had a real knack for the ball and was a productive scorer. He had six offensive boards and eight total, and chipped in seven points. It wasn’t an amazing effort by any stretch, but he kept a lot of plays alive during the Hoosiers’ comeback run, and it was an integral part of why they were able to make this a game.  IU, with their thin frontline, could use this kind of effort out of Pritch every night.

Yes, of course, there was plenty to gripe about in this game. (Just what until you get to The Bad.) But IU could have laid down and died in this one. Instead, they turned up the defensive pressure in both the full and half court, were aggressive and got to the line, and hit some big shots to bring them right back into this game.

This is what good teams do when they find themselves at a crossroads: They will themselves back into the game with good play on both sides of the ball. But good teams also find a way to win these games against an inferior opponent at home. And well, we all know that didn’t happen tonight.

THE BAD: OH, THERE WAS PLENTY.

I’ve seen some bad basketball in my day. I’ve played some bad basketball in my day. I know last year’s team turned the ball over at a freakishly high rate. But man, this has to rank up there as some of the most terrible basketball I’ve seen in recent history. It was a like a middle school game between two unskilled, uncoordinated teams. The game was basically a reversed course. Where Loyola feasted off IU’s turnovers for 20 points thanks to its full-court press in the first half,  IU got back into this game on the strength of its three-quarters court trap in the second half. Both teams finished the night with 23 turnovers. Early in the first half, when IU actually was able to break the press (which was rare), every possession just seemed to be guys trying to drive — be it Maurice Creek, Christian Watford, Devan Dumes — and falling over themselves.

There was also a ridiculous 58 free throws shot in this game — 32 for IU; 26 for Loyola — which seemed to be to IU’s advantage. They hit a nice 10-of-12 in the first half, and were hitting early in the second.

But it killed them down the stretch:  Jones missed two with 8:21 to go, Jeremiah Rivers missed four straight in the last 2:03, none more important than the two he missed with IU down 69-67 with 37 seconds to play, which essentially sealed the game for Loyola. In the second half, IU only shot 12-of-20 from the line, good for 60 percent. In a game that’s so close, one that you were once down 24 in, you have to do better than that.

And if you’re wondering why, when the shot clock and game clock were nearly identical after those last two missed free throws, the Hoosiers waited 20 seconds to foul, it’s because Brett Harvey happens to be the best returning free-throw shooter in the country from last season. When he didn’t give up the ball, IU had to eventually foul. And all it did was give them less time to mount a comeback. Down four with 17 seconds to go is a lot harder than down four with 35-36 seconds to go.

And ugh, the four-point play with just under two minutes to go in which Rivers fouled Harvey on a 3-point attempt that he made? A four-point lead with just under two minutes to go quickly became a two-point deficit. In a game like this, you can’t let that happen. You just can’t. And it was the second time it happened; the first play of the second half was a four-point play from Harvey, in which Rivers fouled him on a 3-pointer.

The worst play of the night? With 11 minutes to go in the first half, Watford looked to inbound the ball under Loyola’s basket. Hulls and Rivers were covered in the backcourt very near to him on the baseline. Dumes, the next closest Hoosier, was near the 3-point line down on IU’s side of the court. So what does Watford do? He throws it right to — literally it hit him chest high — Robert Olsen of Loyola, a guy that was standing pretty much at center court.

That play pretty much epitomizes how this game went.

THE UGLY: WHEN THE TIE COMES OFF, YOU KNOW TOM CREAN IS ANGRY.

Tale of two halves this evening in Bloomington. After a lack of defensive presence coupled with some lackadaisical play in the first half, IU came storming out of the gate in the second half, and never looked back. Blame the first half on finals, or a week off, or whatever you want, but Tom Crean must have lit a fire under his team in the locker room, because they took it to another level after the intermission. NC Central shot 40 percent in the first half, and only 28.1 percent in the second half.

IU was able to get points in transition, nail some threes (though, they were only 6-of-18 in the second half), push the pace and dictate the game  — something they should do against an opponent like this.  IU’s point guards combined for 16 assists — Jeremiah Rivers had eight (seven in the first half) and Jordan Hulls had eight — and what else can you say about Maurice Creek? He went off for 29 points on 12-of-17 shooting (5-of-10 from three) and even chipped in seven rebounds. The kid just has a knack for putting the basketball into the hoop. I think early on this season, Hoosier fans thought Christian Watford was going to be IU’s go-to scorer and super freshman, but at this point, it’s all Creek all the time.

Tom Pritchard also deserves some recognition here. After many of you thought Elston should get the start in front of him — and rightfully so — Crean did just that, as the freshman started this evening. Pritchard has struggled with foul trouble in several games this year, and has looked sluggish. But he was able to play 21 minutes tonight, hit 4-of-5 from the floor for eight points, and snatch six rebounds.  An amazing line? No. But the non-start seems to have lit a bit of a fire under him, and he was in the conversation tonight — something that’s important to this squad heading into Big Ten season.

THE BAD AND UGLY: CONSISTENCY.

Even though IU shot 56 percent in the first half, their defense — a mix of man and zone — just wasn’t there, and they let a team they eventually beat by 23 hang around. Against a better team, the Hoosiers might have found themselves in a hole at half instead of up three. Sixteen turnovers is a little concerning, though it could have been worse. IU shot 14-of-21 from the line for 66.7 percent, which isn’t going to cut it.

But bottom line: IU brought it in the second half, won big, got the scrubs in — Kory Barnett, anyone? — are .500 on the year at 5-5 and a win away from matching last year’s win total.