Tim Jankovich is adamant he knows the end result of the hypothetical scenario in which Jarrey Foster didn’t tear his ACL in a January win at Wichita State.

“I really do believe had he stayed healthy the entire year,” Jankovich told Pony Stampede, “he would have been able to stay in and get drafted.”

Foster still put his name in the NBA Draft without an agent, but withdrew and returned to SMU for his senior season in early May. Even with the ACL injury – his second since his junior year of high school – he was projected as a possible late second round pick before coming back to SMU. With a full recovery and a strong senior year, the hope is the draft stock can climb up to its pre-injury levels.

Draft analysts can see that happening. He ranked No. 30 in ESPN’s early top 60 2019 draft prospect list, and No. 25 on Sports Illustrated’s. Before the injury, he was considered a possible top-40 draft pick. He was averaging career highs in points (13.2), rebounds (5.9), assists (2.7) and blocks (1.2). He was shooting 46.6 percent from the floor and 32.3 from 3-point range.

“I already know he was more than on radars last year,” Jankovich said. “There were people that were looking at him as a potential draft choice. And that was January before he got hurt. I just know from talking to a lot of people that he was being closely looked at.”

Returning to that level has a good chance of happening if he shows no ill effects of the injury. So far, according to Jankovich, Foster is ahead of schedule in his rehab and should be fully cleared sometime in preseason practices, which being in early October. A video on Foster’s Instagram story from Monday showed him dunking, another sign of quick progress.

Jankovich said Foster was cleared to resume shooting and ball handling in early June, meaning his rehab isn’t just physical therapy and weight room activity anymore. He spent most of June working exclusively on those two skills, which if not for the injury, he may not have done.

“The truth is he’s probably going to sit on a skill more than he might otherwise,” Jankovich said. “It could end up being a blessing in disguise, which I certainly would not say given how miserable it is to be rehabbing and injured. But right now shooting and ball-handling is about the only thing he can work on.”

Those are considered two of the areas he can improve and therein boost his draft stock.

Foster’s 3-point shot was mainly an auxiliary item in his first two years. It was available if asked, but rarely volunteered. Last season, though, he started taking more 3s. He averaged 3.3 attempts per game from distance before the injury. A 4-for-23 shooting slump in his last eight games dropped his percentage from 41.0 to the 32.3 where it ended.

An encouraging sign came in his free throw percentage, which increased for the third straight season to a career-best 69.8 percent. That’s often as good an indicator of NBA 3-point shooting ability as college 3-point percentages.

If the injury makes him better in both shooting and ball-handling, it may well end up being just a blip on his college career and not a detriment to his stock. That’s the optimistic outlook Jankovich has been feeding him.

“We talked about that at length. Turn this humungous negative into a positive,” Jankovich said. “Come out of it a more pure shooter and a better ball handler. You probably would not have been working on those two things singularly as much. But now, that’s all he has. So I really hope it ends up serving him well.”