Two guys, two ACL injuries, two timelines….. but one might tell us something about what to expect from the other.
January 3, 2024: Providence forward Bryce Hopkins suffers what turns out to be an ACL tear in his knee during the Friars’ 61-57 home loss to Seton Hall. He would not play again for the rest of the 2023-24 season.
January 10, 2024: Marquette guard Sean Jones suffers what turns out to be an ACL tear in his knee late in the Golden Eagles’ 69-62 home loss to Butler. He would not play again for the rest of the 2023-24 season.
It is reasonable to presume that Jones finds himself on a recovery timeline that is roughly one week behind Hopkins. Yes, there’s variables. Not all ACL tears are 100% exactly the same, they probably didn’t have the same surgeons, we don’t know precisely when they both had the reconstruction surgery, they don’t have the same sports medicine staffs, they don’t have the same strength & conditioning staffs, not every single human body reacts to healing the same way, and even the fact that Hopkins is 6’7” and 220 pounds while Jones is 5’10” and 185 pounds factors into the thing one way or another.
But those are ultimately minor differences. Two ACL injuries, seven days apart. Jones is, mostly speaking, one week behind Hopkins.
The expected return from ACL repair for an athlete is roughly eight to 12 months. We passed the eight month mark for both men back in September, so it wouldn’t be impossible under those guidelines to see either one suit up for Opening Night of the 2024-25 college basketball season in the first week of November. Neither one did.
Given that he had a head start, it wasn’t a surprise to see Hopkins make his 2024-25 debut before Jones. That happened on December 3rd — exactly 11 months after his injury — and he put up 16 points, five rebounds, and four assists as Providence beat BYU, 83-64, at Amica Mutual Pavilion.
But the reason why I’m writing this is because Hopkins played in just two more games before missing each of the last three Providence games — including the New Year’s Eve game against Marquette — with what has been called knee soreness. It seems clear from that descriptor that we’re talking about Hopkins’ surgically repaired knee. If it was his other one, I don’t think you miss games after returning from your injury because your otherwise okay knee is slightly bothering you. It appears that Hopkins is not 100% comfortable with how his surgically repaired knee feels after playing 92 minutes of college basketball in an eight day stretch.
And that brings us to Sean Jones. It’s New Year’s Day as I write this, which means we’re nine days away from the one year mark of his injury, a little longer away from the one year mark of his surgery and the start of his recovery. He has not stepped on the court for Marquette yet this season. However, Marquette stopped listing him as injured and out as of the Dayton game back on December 14th. Head coach Shaka Smart has said that Jones has been given clearance to return to full practice with the team, and that it seems like Jones’ last hurdle to clear is the self-confidence in both his abilities after the injury as well as in the knee itself to keep working the way he needs it to work.
It is starting to seem like there’s a chance Hopkins might not play again this season. It’s been three weeks since he played for the Friars. Three weeks since he played a reasonable minutes load for him, and he’s still not okay with how his knee feels.
I’ve always been of the opinion that Sean Jones should not play for Marquette this year until he’s at least comfortable replicating his freshman year — 11.5 minutes per game in Big East contests — every single night for the rest of the season. I would, of course, like to see Jones be able to get more towards the 16.2 minutes that he was averaging last year when he suffered his injury, but there’s never been a reason to push him to do more than what works for him.
The last thing I want to see happen for Jones is exactly what’s happening with Hopkins: He gets cleared, he believes he’s ready to go, but it doesn’t quite go the way that anyone wants and he’s no longer comfortable pushing his knee like that. I would much rather see Jones take an extra month of rehab and conditioning and test flights and be 100% sure about what he can contribute to this team.
And that’s the last component of it. Does Marquette need Sean Jones for the remaining 17 games of Big East play and whatever comes next in the postseason? Jones hasn’t played a minute yet, and the Golden Eagles are 12-2 overall, 3-0 in the Big East, #8 in the AP top 25, #8 in the NET, and #8 on KenPom.com while generating the #12 offense and the #10 defense in the country. It certainly looks like Marquette is capable of putting together a terrific season without a contribution from Jones.
Is the smartest and best idea for Jones to take a redshirt season and come back completely healthy in November 2025? We haven’t hit the midway point of Marquette’s season yet, so we can’t say that’s a bad idea for Jones to return to the court right now. But we’ll pass the midway point of the regular season over the next two games as we go from 14 played and 17 remaining to 16 played with 15 remaining. It seems likely that Marquette has an NCAA tournament future, so the for sure midpoint is another two games after that. Once we get to the home game against Xavier on January 18th — over a year and a week since Jones’ injury — that’s the point where there’s more games in the past than in the future. That’s where Marquette needs to make a decision one way or another on Jones in 2024-25.