Marquette Offers A Scholarship To 2022 Guard Sean Jones

Did you realize it’s been over a month since we had word of a new scholarship offer from Marquette men’s basketball for a high school prospect? It’s true! The last time we wrote about high schoolers on these digital pages was back in mid-April when new head coach Shaka Smart got offers out to local guys Seth Trimble and Leon Bond. There hasn’t been anything making enough noise for us to talk about since then, at least not til now.

Earlier this week, Smart and assistant coach DeAndre Haynes reached out to Class of 2022 prospect Sean Jones and offered him a scholarship.

247 Sports says that Jones is a 5’10”, 170 pound point guard. He hails from Columbus, Ohio, where he attends Lincoln High School in Gahanna, a northeast side suburb. He’s currently rated as a three star prospect by the 247 Sports Composite system and ranked #178 in the Class of 2022. That makes him the #28 point guard in the class and the sixth best prospect in the state of Ohio.

Jones has a long, long list of teams interested in him so far even though he’s never been ranked higher than #172 in the Composite. The big name on the board is Xavier, as former 247 Sports recruiting analyst Brian Snow put in a pick for the Musketeers back in December of 2020. Amongst the high major offers for Jones already: Kansas State, Pittsburgh, and Virginia Tech. There’s a few more on the list, but they’ve had coaching changes recently so I’m not sure if those are pre or post changes. Ohio State, Jones’ hometown squad, are listed as interested, but 247 says that they haven’t made an official offer yet.

I’m piecing together information about Jones’ prep career. It appears that he averaged 18.2 points per game as a sophomore at Gahanna as the team put up a 24-2 record. Seems pretty good. As of mid-February this past season, Jones was averaging 15.5 points per game as a junior as he passed the 1,000 career points mark. At the time, Gahanna was 15-2 on the year and had secured the #1 seed in the Ohio Division 1 district tournament. It appears they ended up 22-3 on the season after falling in the Division 1 state quarterfinals. That appears to be a heartbreaker of a loss, as Jones hit a tough pull up with just seconds left but Westerville Central hit a half-courter to win it at the buzzer.

Here’s 10 minutes of highlights from Jones’ sophomore season:

Jones also has a Hudl page, but don’t be discouraged by the freshman year highlights pinned to the top. There’s newer stuff if you scroll down, including an eight minute long junior year highlight reel.

And now, the scholarship chart!

We’ll have to wait to see how many scholarships are actually available for the Class of 2022. It would seem that Smart and his staff are keeping the door open on using the last available scholarship for the 2021-22 school year, and if that’s someone other than a guy using their COVID bonus season, then there might be one less scholarship than expected for 2022-23. We’re also still waiting on Dawson Garcia’s decision on his future. If he elects to stay in the NBA Draft this summer, then that would open another spot for the 2022 recruiting class. Of course, there’s always the possibility that Garcia ends up leaving next offseason to go pro and that would just open that spot back up as well.

In any case, we know that Greg Elliott will be on his fourth year of eligibility in 2021-22, and as such, there’s a better than even chance that he’ll be leaving after the season even with the possibility of a COVID bonus season available to him. If Marquette is losing a guard, especially an experienced one, then you absolutely want to replace said guard with a freshman coming in. Jones fits the bill there perfectly, and if we’re being quite honest, MU is probably a little shorthanded on guards for 2022-23 even if Elliott sticks around for that extra season of eligibility.