During most summer days around Creighton’s Championship Center you were about as likely to see players hopping around with crutches as you would an actual basketball. As classes kicked off on campus and players started migrating back to Omaha the Creighton men’s basketball team has progressively been getting healthier as individual workouts get started and the first official practice of the season nears.
“It’s good to have everybody back on campus,” head coach Greg McDermott said. “Hopefully we can gradually get everybody healthy and get everyone back on the floor, but I think we’re moving in that direction.”
Martin Krampejl lost his true freshman season to injury, but is cleared now for 2016-17 (WBR)
On the injury front, senior guard Isaiah Zierden has been a full participant in open gyms and individual workouts after undergoing shoulder surgery at the end of the season. Senior forward Cole Huff is about three weeks away from returning to action as he continues to recover from offseason microfracture surgery on his knee. And a third senior, center Zach Hanson, is hoping to ditch crutches soon and ramp up his rehabilitation after a surgery similar to Huff’s. Given the timing of Hanson’s injury, the best-case scenario for his return to the court is about three months away, according to McDermott.
The progressive news continued to pour in on Tuesday afternoon when, as most expected, redshirt freshman forward Martin Krampelj was given a clean bill of health to return to action. Krampelj tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in mid-December and underwent surgery to repair the damage on December 28. Eight months and several hours of grueling rehab later he has the green light to give it a go, and no one is happier than the 6-foot-9 forward from Slovenia.
“It’s been amazing,” Krampelj said as he sat down to catch his breath after going through a skill workout with his position group, just hours after getting cleared by the doctor. “The guys are excited to have me back. It didn’t even feel like it was eight months in between. I was really excited.
“I was doing a lot of skills in non-contact drills, so I was pretty happy to do some contact drills with [my teammates]. It felt great. I feel strong. It’s been eight months now. The doctor said the graft is pretty much healed, but it still needs time to heal all the way to 100%. But my muscles are there, so I’m ready to play.”
All evaluations have indicated that not only has the strength in the Bluejay forward’s knee returned, but it has actually improved from what it was prior to surgery.
“The strength in both legs I think is actually better than when he first got here,” McDermott said. “Coming off of surgery that’s hard to believe, but he’s worked really hard to develop that strength, not only in the knee that he had operated on, but in the other leg as well.”
To a person, if you talk to anyone about what the Grosuplje, Slovenia native went through to get ready in time for the season and you’ll get exhausted just listening to them. Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Dan Bailey described Krampelj as a “relentless worker” after watching him add 18 pounds of mostly muscle to his frame, while increasing his bench press by 60 pounds and his vertical jump by an inch from when he first got to campus a little over a year ago.
Head athletic trainer Ben McNair, who along with physical therapist Terry Grindstaff, said that in addition to the time spent on rehab workouts Krampelj would also put in somewhere in the neighborhood of three and a half hours on his own between shooting at the Championship Center or working out in the weight room.
Krampelj didn’t take those sessions in the weight room lightly either, despite the injury.
“My workouts were twice as hard as anyone else’s in the weight room at the time,” the Bluejay forward said. “I was working really hard. “I gained 20 pounds, I guess of muscle, mostly. I look a lot bigger.”
He’ll need that added bulk, too, as the competition he will be up against, especially in the Big East isn’t forgiving to players who are lacking the physicality department. A lesson he had a lot of time to learn while watching from the sideline and on television.
“I was watching a lot of clips of Big East players,” Krampelj said. “They are fast and strong. That’s way different than the non-conference games, but I think I’m physically prepared for that. I just need to have the right mindset and be in the right position all the time.”
While he did learn a lot by watching from afar, he admits that it did get difficult at times, especially when the game entered those moments where the younger players across the league were allowed to get a taste for how the college game is played under the bright lights.
“It was hard to watch the team on the TV at home,” he said. “Sometimes I just covered my face when they were up by 10 or 15, because that would be my time to be on the court.”
But those thoughts, according to him, are all in the past now as he gears up for his second year at Creighton.
“It happened. I recovered and I’m here now,” Krampelj said. “I feel like I’m home. I feel more mature. I don’t have as much trouble with the language anymore, so I’ll be on the right track.”