After Marquette’s loss to #17 St. John’s on Wednesday night, Ben Steele asked head men’s basketball coach Shaka Smart if there was an update on the condition of redshirt junior guard Sean Jones. Smart had last noted on National Marquette Day on February 7th that he was unsure as to whether or not Jones would be able to get back on the court again this season. Flash forward to February 18, and here’s what he had to say, starting at the 8:56 mark of the video:
Ben Steele: I know you gave an update on
Sean a couple weeks ago, but it doesn’t seem like he’s progressing. Just where where’s he at right now?
Shaka Smart: Yeah, I’m glad you asked. I actually meant to say something in the open. Sean’s not going to be able to play the rest of the year. Just the timing doesn’t work out for him to be physically able. So he he’ll be unavailable for us the rest of the year.
Steele: He’s played in eight games. Is it possible for him to get a medical redshirt?
Smart: Well, he redshirted last year, so he wouldn’t be able to get a redshirt. Potentially maybe a medical hardship, which is a little bit different, but those are all things that get looked at kind of retroactively.
As of February 7th, we were already at the point where Smart had said he wasn’t sure if the timeline was going to work out for Jones to play again this season. That sounds like the doctors involved had told Jones and Smart something like “could be two weeks, could be six” and that’s why it was a little up in the air. Now we’re 11 days later, and two weeks after the St. John’s game is Marquette’s last road game of the year with the regular season finale coming up three days later. One week after that — three and a half weeks from when Smart was speaking after the St. John’s game — is the start of the Big East tournament. If the doctors say “yeah, he didn’t make the progress needed to be back in two weeks, so it’s still going to be another month,” then that’s it for Jones in 2025-26.
Can I play a little Conspiracy Corner? I may be reading way, way too much into this, but go read Shaka Smart’s answer about the medical redshirt again. He noted that because Jones redshirted the 2024-25 season as he recovered from his knee injury, he doesn’t have a free redshirt season available. There would have to be an application for a medical hardship waiver, which you can only do after it’s clear that you’re going to lose a season of eligibility to injury after already using a redshirt season.
This is the conspiracy part: Shaka Smart did not say “we’ll work with Sean and the NCAA to do whatever we can to get him on the floor for us in November.” He merely pointed out that the waiver has to be done after the season is lost/over, and that was it. No looking forward to Jones suiting up for the Golden Eagles again. Given the TNT Sports breaking news about Marquette and the transfer portal during the Xavier game as well as Smart talking about the portal again after answering the question about Jones in the video above….. man, the pieces sure do come together to look like Smart is moving with the idea that Sean Jones won’t play for him again.
Could just be an off the cuff answer from Shaka Smart and it doesn’t mean anything super serious, too. We’ll see what happens, but that’s certainly what it looks like to me.
Sean Jones ends his redshirt junior season at Marquette with eight games played. He started the first three games of the year, suffered a shoulder injury that kept him out for six games, then returned for another five contests coming off the bench behind Nigel James. In his limited action this year, Jones averaged 6.3 points, 1.4 rebounds, 3.9 assists, and 1.0 steals per game. He shot just 31% from the floor overall, which works out at 30% on two-pointers and 32% on three-pointers.
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