We start off Player Previews with a Very Special Edition.
The 2024-25 college basketball season is right around the corner, so let’s dive into the Marquette men’s basketball roster and take a look at what to expect from each player this season. For most of these Player Previews, we’ll be going in this order: The two true freshmen — skipping past Josh Clark who is not expected to play this season — then the redshirt freshman, then the returning players in ascending order of average minutes played last season.
But I did say “for most of” the Player Previews, and that’s because we’re starting off our series with the biggest question mark on the roster for this coming season……..
Sean Jones
Junior — #22 — Guard — 5’10” — 185 lbs. — Columbus, Ohio
Normally, the Player Preview goes along like this: A relatively brief summary of what the returning player has done with the Golden Eagles so far in their career, building up to the point of moving to the actual season preview part. From there, we establish Reasonable Expectations for the coming season, at least one reason why Marquette fans should be very excited about what that guy could be capable of doing that season, and then possible reasons why maybe things won’t work out quite as well as we hope.
That’s what we do when we have a normal Player Preview to write. Unfortunately for Sean Jones, we can’t write a normal Player Preview for him. The fact of the matter is that we don’t know when we’re going to see Jones on the floor again.
Jones was having a perfectly good sophomore season a year ago. His minutes were up, his production was up and not just because he was playing more, and his advanced metrics were showing signs of growth. Heck, he was even on a hot streak from behind the arc, connecting on six of his 12 three-point attempts in Big East play after starting out the season 3-for-23.
And then his knee self-destructed late in a very not fun loss to Butler in early January.
It was a non-contact injury, something that just ripped free as Jones planted to gather himself for a layup in transition after picking Posh Alexander’s pocket. Jones was done for the year at that point, eventually wearing the hip to ankle leg brace and crutches that are usually indicative of ACL repair surgery, and that also began some basic and rudimentary math and calendar reading.
Depending on the exact surgery that Jones required, a return to action from ACL repair for an athlete is roughly eight to 12 months. And so let’s do the math:
We’re not 100% sure when the surgery happened, but Marquette did announce that it was planned for mid-January. Mid-January plus eight months is mid-September. Mid-January plus 12 months is, of course, mid-January one year later. This all means that, here in the very beginning of October, we’re officially in the window where Jones could be fully recovered and ready to return….. except we know that he’s not back in action.
On September 17th, the Milwaukee Uncut podcast published an interview with Marquette head coach Shaka Smart. He didn’t go into details at the time, but he did mention looking forward to when Jones could get back on the court. While we don’t know exactly when the show was recorded, Smart’s phrasing made it sound like 1) Jones isn’t close and 2) Smart doesn’t have a For Sure date that Jones will be back.
On September 28, the Marquette men’s basketball Instagram account published a “First Week Of Practice Highlights” post. As someone with a vested interest in knowing about Jones’ recovery relative to writing this preview, I watched carefully to see if he was in the videos….. and he is, but not in an encouraging manner.
Here he is on the sideline during a drill when everyone else was on the baseline shouting at the participants. You’ll notice he’s not wearing the same practice jersey as everyone else, nor is he wearing the same practice shorts.
Here’s Jones again during a different video, standing in about the same spot, except this time we can tell that he’s hanging out with assistant coach Nevada Smith. Again, not dressed like his teammates who are participating in drills.
I went to the open scrimmage on October 5th. As expected from the previous pictures, Jones was not dressed to compete. In fact, while Damarius Owens sat out the competition portion of the day with a groin injury that’s almost recovered, he did participate in drills before the scrimmaging started. Jones isn’t even at the “drills are okay” portion of his recovery.
This isn’t to say that Jones is encased in bubble wrap and the team and trainers are afraid to let him do work. Jones is clearly visible doing all manner of things that you’d be a little surprised to see a knee surgery patient doing during Marquette’s hill training video that was published on September 18th.
It’s safe to say that Jones is currently not cleared for 100% action.
The question is whether or not he’s going to be cleared before we get to that 12 month marker.
Smart’s commentary on the podcast makes it sound like he and his staff are expecting to see Jones play this season, but that decision is up to 1) the training staff to clear Jones and 2) Jones to pull the trigger on playing depending on when he gets the green light. If it takes him the full 12 months to be completely cleared, then he’s looking at Marquette having five, maybe six of their 20 Big East games in the books by then. Does he want to play the remaining 14 regular season games and whatever postseason remains after that, or does he want to redshirt and get a full year’s worth of competition for his third season of eligibility? If Jones gets the green light earlier than mid-January, that makes the decision easier. Same goes for if he gets it later and another three, four, five Big East games tick off the calendar before he can play. It’s much easier to say “I’ll redshirt this year and be completely healthy in November 2025” if he’s down to just 10 games of the regular season available to him.
And that’s why this is a Very Special Edition of our Player Previews. We have no idea when Sean Jones will be cleared to compete for Marquette. Worse than that, we have no idea what the incredibly athletic and speedy Jones will look like when he’s cleared for competition. Knee injuries are a tricky thing, and when you’re a guy who depends on fast twitch and stop on a dime reactions to be a major contributor in the Big East, losing 10% of your athleticism to the injury is an awful lot to lose.
No Reasonable Expectations, No Why You Should Be Excited, No Potential Pitfalls here. Just caution and patience.