Darin Peterson says that high levels of creatine lead to cramping

Darren Peterson Finally there is an answer.

One of the top prospects in this year’s NBA draft has made the most of his freshman season Kansas Trying to resolve mysterious and sometimes debilitating cramping. But in an extended interview with ESPN this week, Peterson said a new round of blood work and other tests after the college basketball season led his doctors to conclude that high doses of creatine caused the condition.

“I’ve never taken it before (he went to college),” Peterson said of the popular supplement that helps increase muscle strength, power and growth. “But after the season I took two weeks off and they checked that my baseline levels were already high. So, they said that when I dosed (a process of increasing a dose over time to maximize benefits at the beginning of taking a supplement), it must have made the levels unsafe.”

Peterson, who is ranked ESPN’s Jeremy Wu has the No. 2 prospect available in next month’s draftSaid his problems began last year with a scary episode after Kansas coach Bill Self’s annual weeklong boot camp in September that sent him to the hospital in an ambulance.

At first his legs trembled. Then his stomach, back, arms and hands. At one stage his whole body is shaking.

“I got to the training room and started begging them to call 911,” he said. “They were trying to get me an IV, to get me back hydrated. But I was so hard they couldn’t get an IV.

“I thought I was going to die on the training table that day.”

Eventually doctors in the hospital’s emergency room were able to access an vein and give him several bags of fluids intravenously. Peterson was there for several hours for what doctors believed to be severe dehydration.

He said he was sore for a few days but pushed to get back into the game. But the experience is not over. Peterson said the full-body cramp was so intense that he struggled to shake the fear that it might happen again.

“Whenever I’ve experienced something like that, my initial instinct is that it could happen again,” Peterson said. “And I can’t let that happen and be embarrassed and have it be on TV and all that.

“It kind of threw me into a daze because I didn’t know what was causing it. Nothing was wrong with me before that. Basketball is my life. It’s what I love to do. But something was happening and I couldn’t figure it out.

“My biggest thing is I’m going to keep trying because we don’t know what’s wrong and we can’t say anything is wrong. So, I’m going to go out there and when it happens, I’m going to ask to come out. I don’t know if it was a right or wrong move.

“But when I committed to Kansas, I told coach (myself), ‘I’m going to do everything I can. I’m going to try to help you get a championship. I’m going to go out there for my teammates and for you.’ So, I tried to hold up my end of the bargain, tried to be there.”

In all, Peterson missed 11 games and asked to sit out several more throughout the season. By the end of the season, Peterson had figured out how to stay in the game, and he played more than 30 minutes in eight of the Jayhawks’ final nine regular-season games. But by then, the scrutiny and criticism of the former Naismith High School Player of the Year had become loud and uncomfortable.

Peterson rarely spoke to the media about his problems, he said, because he had no explanation for what was causing the problem and never publicly disclosed the frightening, full-body cramps that sent him to the hospital. Finally, at the Big 12 Tournament in mid-March, he told the story of the incident to the assembled media. At that point, however, he had no explanation as to why this had happened.

HIPAA rules all season prohibited Kansas coach Bill Self from discussing the cramping incident or giving further details about Peterson’s health.

After that interview, Self told The Athletic that “stops and starts definitely affected him. Conditioning, rhythm, team rhythm, a lot of things. I think it affected him differently. You can imagine him going into every game believing that it’s going to be a game that your body feels right in, and that didn’t happen.”

Many of his teammates saw Peterson being rushed to the hospital by ambulance after suffering full-body cramps. They kept it personal all season, out of respect for Peterson. But it informed their perspective on her seasonal struggle to understand what was wrong with her.

His teammates were also aware that Peterson frequently tried preventative IV bags, electrolyte supplements, massages and other physical therapies to stay on the court.

“My roommate Bryson Tiller I had my back, Melvin Council Jr. Did as well. They would say certain things about it, but even they didn’t know what it was. They’re trying to protect you, but they don’t know what to say, ‘If he could be there, he would be. He is trying, working.’

“They saw me in rehab every day before practice, after practice. Get massages. Try all kinds of things. Carboloading because they thought I was low on glucose or something. Electrolytes. IV fluids, LMNT. I changed my diet. I prepared meals. Everything I could think of.”

As the criticism grew, Peterson said he grew tighter with his support system.

His father, Daryl Peterson, who played in college at the University of Akron and was Peterson’s coach for most of his life, kept telling him “whenever we’re going to have the last laugh. We know what kind of kid you are. This is not going to be your life. Don’t be too high or too low about it. We’re going through it. We’re going to figure it out.”

Although it was difficult for his mother Natatya. Peterson recalled a time when his mother called him crying because there was nothing she could do to help him.

“He was like, ‘I’ve always had an angel for your whole life, but now I don’t know what to do,’ ” Peterson said. “There were definitely times when I wanted to quit and when the world was against me, but they had my back and it was great to have someone to lean on.”

Peterson’s former AAU coach, Sam Mitchell, tested him throughout the year. With former NBA coach of the year Toronto Raptors He said he resented the criticism leveled at his former officials because it didn’t match the player he grew up with as the head coach of Phenom United, which is managed by Peterson’s father, Darryl.

“It hurt me and upset me because I know this kid,” Mitchell told ESPN. “This young man, I don’t even call him a kid. Because I treated him like a young man from day one.”

“Pardon my language, but that mother—worked her ass. She loved it—. Even where I’d say, you’ve got to rest a little bit. …I went down in a game because she was trying to block every shot and mother— had eight blocks. You can do that here, but your team doesn’t have to try harder to save all your energy when you go to the league. Shoot.”

Peterson says she’s starting to feel like herself again now that she has an explanation for the cause of her problems with cramping. He is training for the NBA Combine and Draft in Los Angeles and hasn’t had any problems since stopping taking creatine supplements.

During this time his focus was on honing his shooting and point guard skills. He played ball often at Kansas, but he believes point guard is his best position.

“I was off (the ball) most of the year, but there were some moments where I wasn’t really myself,” Peterson said. “So, coach was trying to figure out ways to help me still be effective without working too hard. As a point guard you’ve got to bring it up, you’ve got to do everything.

“I was thinking how different things would have been if I hadn’t gotten hurt or all that stuff (at Kansas). When I was there, I felt like I still did OK. But I had another level that people didn’t see.”