Will Tyus Jones Stay Or Go?

It has been a little more than a week since the college basketball season has ended, and now the focus is on the NBA Draft. Since the Duke Blue Devils won the National Championship both Jahlil Okafor and Justise Winslow have declared for the draft, but the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four, Tyus Jones, has yet to make a decision.

At this point a lot of the major college prospects have made their decisions as to whether they will stay or go, but Jones is really taking his time with his choice. Even though he became a household name during the Final Four and National Championship game, Jones’ choice isn’t an easy one by any means.

One the one hand Jones is projected as a late first round pick, which isn’t bad but also isn’t great. If he is selected at the end of the first round, odds are he will go to a very good team and be put in a great situation. But to refute that thought process, Jones might be thinking that coming back to school for another year will increase his draft stock with another strong season.

On the other hand though, there are people out there that think Jones’ stock is at its peak and can not get any higher. He proved in the title game that he is a big time player, and can hit huge shots when the team needs him to. Winning MOP and a National Championship doesn’t happen to too many guys and Jones won both in his freshman season.

Jones is an undersized point guard as he is listed at 6’1″, and doesn’t have a great amount of athleticism. Those are the major knocks against him along with a jump shot that can improve, but besides that Jones has an extremely high basketball IQ and is the type of point guard you want running the show for your team.

Right now it just seems like Tyus Jones is basking in the glory of having won a Championship and winning MOP. Jones made an appearance at the Minnesota Twins home opener on Monday and presented Kevin Garnett with the baseball to throw out the first pitch. Jones is from Apple Valley Minnesota and was in town visiting some family. At the game he said he has yet to make a decision.

Clearly Jones is in no rush to decide whether he will stay for his sophomore season at Duke or make the leap to the NBA, but surely Duke would like to know what he is going to do as soon as possible. If Jones decides to leave, that would put Duke in a bit of a bind because they don’t have any other point guards on the 2015 roster as of right now.

Some have argued that Jones needs another year in college to really refine his game, others have said he should make the jump now. At this point it is hard to know what he will do, but as a Duke fan the fact that he is taking this long does seem like a pretty good sign. Jones did say his decision would depend on Winslow and Okafor’s decisions, but it has been three days since Winslow declared and still no news from Tyus.

One thing we do know for certain is that if Jones is going to declare for the NBA Draft he will have to do so by April 26, so stay tuned for all the latest Duke news.