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USATSI

Texas guard Andrew Jones appeared in only 10 games during his sophomore season last year after a January leukemia diagnosis forced him to step away from the game for treatment. 

Jones has been open about his road to recovery throughout the process, posting progress videos earlier this summer of him dunking and getting back into competition only six months removed from his diagnosis. During that time, he's developed quite a fan base in the college basketball community rooting for him to make a full recovery.

Sticking with his transparent approach to his recovery, Jones, in a video published on The Players' Tribune this week, went in detail about his fight with cancer, his support system that has fueled him, and the symptoms he contracted before the diagnosis.

"At first they thought I had a viral infection," said Jones. "Then they thought I had the flu. I'm gonna get some Theraflu, and I'll be good in a week. But it didn't get better. I went and got blood work done, and she told me it was leukemia."

Jones had opened up his sophomore season on a tear out of the gate, which, Jones says, was part of why the diagnosis was so frustrating to come to grips with. In those 10 games he appeared in, he averaged 13.5 points, 2.4 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game, and was rounding into shape as one of the top players in the Big 12.

"It's kind of depressing because I was almost at the peak of my game," said Jones. "I was playing at a high level to make myself a potential draft pick ... I started to feel run down, started to feel heavy. It kind of feels like a dehydrating type of feeling, and it's like you don't wanna move, you just wanna lay there."

Jones is in the midst of returning to the game he loves and learning to live life as a cancer survivor. Since being released from the hospital in late February 2018, he's slowly gaining weight -- up 10 pounds to 160 -- and he's doing as much as possible to get back on the court again.

"I'm starting to embrace being a cancer survivor," says Jones. "If I can inspire you just to get up in the morning and attempt to make your life better, then I've done my job, I feel good. I've faced death twice, and I'm here by the grace of God."