This was probably always the most likely possibility after his knee injury in mid-January 2024.
On Monday morning, Marquette men’s basketball made an announcement that has felt like it was right around the corner for a couple of weeks now. Guard Sean Jones will sit out for the remainder of the 2024-25 season as he rehabs from the ACL injury he suffered in January 2024. Jones will have two years of eligibility remaining when he returns to action in November 2025.
Y’all can argue about it if you want, but the fact of the matter is that I never expected Sean Jones to play in 2024-25. Here’s the logic puzzle attached to Jones’ return after a January knee surgery, as I wrote it in his Player Preview in October:
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.
According to the team’s Instagram post, we’re still just under two weeks away from the one year marker on Jones’ surgery. Marquette will play their fifth Big East game on Tuesday, and they’ll get to seven games played by the time that one year marker arrives. If Jones isn’t ready to play 10-15 minutes for Marquette on Tuesday night against Georgetown, the fact of the matter is that it’s just the smart decision by everyone involved for Jones to be patient and do his rehab the right way.
After all, as I noted after Marquette’s recent game against Providence, the last thing we want to see happen is what is apparently happening with PC forward Bryce Hopkins: Return, play a couple of games, realize the knee isn’t quite what he expected/thought it was, go back to sitting out. That would actually be worse for everyone involved: Jones, his teammates, the coaches, the medical staff, and so on. This way, Jones doesn’t spend the rest of 2024-25 trying to fit into a Marquette rotation that’s already gotten the Golden Eagles to a 13-2 record, a 4-0 start in the Big East, and top 20 KenPom.com rankings for both offense and defense.
This is not a Marquette team that’s in need of Sean Jones right now. Next fall, though? With Kam Jones and Stevie Mitchell gone because their eligibility was up? That’s a Marquette team that does need a fully healthy Sean Jones, and this decision by Sean now is going to make sure that happens.
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