Somehow, Duke point guard Tre Jones still has not been ruled out for Saturday's game against Virginia. While it's highly unlikely that Jones will be ready to go after separating his shoulder in Monday night's game against Syracuse, the fact that Jones is even participating in practice has to give hope to Duke fans around the country that this injury will not derail the team's chances to cut down the nets in April like it seemed after the initial shock wore off.

According to Jack White after practice yesterday, Jones was even out of his sling and doing individual work on the court.

"To see him out there on the court today doing stuff is really encouraging," White told reporters. "I came into the locker room today and he didn't have the sling. Everyone just kind of went nuts. It was a pretty cool thing, you know."

Yesterday, head coach Mike Krzyzewski revealed that Jones will not be out for long, even mentioning the possibility that Jones could be back as early as this weekend.

“I don’t know if it’s for this game or the next game, but it’s not going to be long term,’’ said the Duke head coach.

If Jones is able to go this weekend, it would make a big impact in the Blue Devils' ability to slow down Virginia's highly efficient offense as well as get inside the Cavaliers' packline defense. It's already been released that Cam Reddish, who missed the Syracuse game with flu-like symptoms, will return on Saturday. But Jones' status is much more up in the air. He's not expected to play, but even the possibility that Jones could suit makes it that much more likely he'll be back sooner than later.

"For a young guy to know that we're so happy for him that's it's not as bad as it was once thought, it's got to be good for him and just shows how much we love him and how important he is to our team," White said.

Jones leads the ACC in assists (5.7 per game), is fifth in steals (2.1 per game) and is third nationally in assist to turnover ratio at 5.69:1. It's easy to quantify how good Jones is by looking at those stats, but his impact on the game goes beyond the box score. He controls the pace and tempo for Duke's fourth-most efficient offense, speeding things up when it needs to be sped up and slowing things down when the game calls for it.

While Jones is not critical for Duke's chances at success this season, considering they have the two most talented players on the court against nearly any opponent in RJ Barrett and Zion Williamson, but he makes the team that much more dominant and provides easy shots for his teammates on the court even in the face of a tough defense like Virginia's.