Last year’s leading scorer returns, and there’s reason to believe that there’s nothing but great things in front of him.
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. Going forward in these Player Previews, we’ll be going in this order: The two true freshmen in alphabetical order by last name — 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.
We’re going to organize our thoughts about the upcoming season as it relates to each player into categories, as we always do:
- Reasonable Expectations
- Why You Should Get Excited
- Potential Pitfalls
With that out of the way, we wrap up this year’s Player Previews with a look at the guy who could be Big East Player of the Year and provide Marquette with an All-American for the third straight year for the first time since the 1970s…….
Kam Jones
Senior — #1 — Guard — 6’5” — 205 lbs. — Memphis, Tennessee
There’s definitely a case to be made that Kam Jones is the shining example of what Shaka Smart’s core beliefs are for success at Marquette. Chart it out: Jones was a reasonable high major prospect coming out of high school at #166 in the 247 Sports Composite, but definitely not a player who was expected to blow anyone out of the water. Jones elected to stick tight with Marquette after a coaching change, meaning he had to restart building his relationships with the staff, Smart in particular, just a short while before arriving in Milwaukee for the first time. He was given quality playing time as a freshman because the staff trusted him pretty quickly, and he paid that trust back.
From there, it’s been pretty much nothing but exponential growth from Jones as a player as he’s led Marquette in scoring in each of the past two seasons as the Golden Eagles won a Big East double title in one campaign and then reached the Sweet 16 for the first time in over a decade in the other. Even though he’s been the leading scorer, he’s been a sometimes overlooked star, but none of that mattered to Jones. All that mattered was winning games in Blue and Gold.
And now he’s back for a senior year, one that you could easily argue that Jones could have passed up. Could he have pursued a pro option after what he did on the court last year? Sure. Could he have hit the transfer portal and cashed in big time as some big pocketed team threw a giant NIL arrangement at him? Sure, Shaka Smart himself even said that’s something that could have happened.
But it didn’t, because Jones values what he has at Marquette, both with his teammates and his coaches, and he wants to go one more round with all of them.
Relationships. Growth. Victory. Shaka Smart’s core beliefs, perhaps perfectly personified in Jones.
Reasonable Expectations
And so, we have to figure out what we should reasonably expect to see from Jones this year. I’ve got a lot of crazy ideas — and we will get to them in the next section — but this is the portion of the show where we stay cool, calm, and rational. We have to remember that while he’s been the leading scorer for the past two years, it’s hard to say that Jones was ever the focal point of opposing defenses. Disrupting the two-man game of Tyler Kolek and Oso Ighodaro was probably high on everyone’s list, and that ultimately did leave Jones a little bit more space to work with on the court. Now everyone’s going to be gunning for him as the primary option, so it feels dishonest to think that he’s going to find a way to truly grow as a scorer as he did from sophomore year to junior year.
I think the reasonable thing to do here is to expect more of the same from Jones. Last year, he averaged 17.2 points, 2.9 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and a bit over a steal per game. He did that while posting a career best field goal percentage of 50.1%, which was powered by shooting better than 40% from behind the arc and nearly 60% inside of it. If I had to guess, I would say that it’s going to be harder for Jones to get the same kind of shot quality this season, so perhaps the numbers stay level as he takes a few more shots but connects a little less often.
Marquette is going to need to fill the Kolek/Ighodaro void, but I think that’s going to mostly have to come from other places on the roster. Expecting Kam Jones to make A Leap from where he was last season seems like a bad choice. Believing he could do it is fine, but expecting it isn’t the right move.
Look no further than the BartTorvik.com algorithmic prediction for proof of that: 18.0 points, 3.8 rebounds, 3.1 assists. That’s not much different than last year.
Why You Should Get Excited
I can’t stop thinking about what Kam Jones did at the open scrimmage in early October.
His three-point shot wasn’t really working for him as he went 1-for-5, but that means he was 5-for-8 inside of the arc. Smart and effective use of his shots, but ultimately, that’s what we expect from not just Jones but from a senior in Shaka Smart’s system. Jones ended up with 15 points, which was going to lead the Gold team in scoring before Josh Clark ran wild with dunks in the final few minutes, and he added a team high five rebounds. Very good stuff, but again, that’s what you expect from a senior leader.
It’s the 11 assists that I keep staring at over and over again. The Gold team scored 24 field goals. Six of those were from Jones himself, so that means there 18 other buckets. Jones had the helper on ELEVEN OF EIGHTEEN field goals.
61%.
I want to be 100% clear about this: No one in the country is putting up an assist rate of 61%. Virginia’s Reece Beekman led the nation last year at 44.8% according to KenPom.com. Tyler Kolek led the country in assists per game last year and was 4th in rate at 41.1%. 61% for an entire season is just not going to happen.
But it does show a desire by Jones to take up a role that has been left empty by Tyler Kolek ending up with the New York Knicks. It shows a recognition by Jones that this year’s version of Marquette needs something from him that last year’s team did not.
What if we don’t get a better Kam Jones, but instead, we get a different Kam Jones?
What if Kam Jones is capable of being one of the best distributing guards in the country? What is he capable of when he gets to play with Stevie Mitchell and David Joplin, two guys who were on the other team in the scrimmage?
I legitimately mean this: What, exactly, is the ceiling for Kam Jones in 2024-25? Maybe the question should actually be is there a ceiling for Jones at all?
Potential Pitfalls
What’s the worst case scenario for Kam Jones this season, with the caveat that I’m talking about a world where he starts in every single one of Marquette’s games? What, he just runs back 17 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal while shooting 40% from long range? A drop off back to Sophomore Year Kam: 15/4/2, a steal, and only 36% from the arc?
Honestly, as long as Marquette turns in an NCAA tournament worthy season, is anyone going to complain that Jones isn’t blowing the roof off of Fiserv Forum on a nightly basis? I’d rather watch a successful MU season with a middle of the road Kam Jones than a fireballing Kam Jones on a struggling Golden Eagles team….. mostly because I know what the second thing looks like, and I didn’t really like it all that much.