Jayden Quaintance has had a roller-coaster college basketball career. He initially signed a national letter of intent to play at Kentucky, but started his career at Arizona State after John Calipari left Kentucky basketball. An ACL tear cut Quaintance's season short, and he transferred to Kentucky.
Quaintance had knee surgery in March when Arizona State's season ended, which cleared the way for him to enter the transfer portal and go to Lexington anyway. He has been recovering with the Kentucky basketball program. On Tuesday, Quaintance spoke for the first time about his injury and how the recovery process has been going.
“I've been feeling great. I've been progressing pretty well. I've been trusting the trainers and the coaches (who are) trying to get me right,” Quaintance said. “Mentally, I've just been focusing on the next step and the moment. I'm feeling excellent.
“Dwelling on things doesn't help you get better. I was always focused on the next step, trying to build myself and see what I could do to improve faster. So I was never really too down.”
Quaintance started in 24 games for the Sun Devils this past season. He averaged 9.4 points, 7.9 rebounds, and 1.5 assists per game. He also shot 52.5% from the field as the starting center down low for Arizona State. He was an even better player on defense than on offense, averaging 2.6 blocks and 1.1 steals per game. He was also named an All-Big 12 Defensive Team selection and an All-Freshman Team member.
When Quaintance entered the transfer portal, he was widely viewed as one of the best players available due to his potential for growth combined with his massive size. He is also projected to be a lottery pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, so his expectations are immense.
“It's just trusting the trainers and coaches to get me back at 100%,” Quaintance said. “They are invested in my future and what I can do to help here, and they don't want to rush me to get back before I'm ready. So just trusting them all the way through.”
Kentucky basketball coach
Mark Pope heaped the same amount of praise back on Quaintance when talking about his recovery and what he will be capable of once he is healthy for the 2025 college basketball season. Mark Pope has been
busy recruiting hard, and he is the latest piece of that.
“He's an incredible talent,” Pope said. “We're going to go as fast as we can with absolute caution. And so, he's working hard. He's making tremendous progress right now. Talk about a beautiful, young person, man. He's young. When I say young person, he is young but a beautiful kid.”
Jake Faigus graduated from the University of Arizona in 2022 and has had stops at Catena Media, Playmaker, DraftKings, USA Today, Spike Up, and Spotlight Sports Group. He also writes for Sporting News and works at iHeartMedia in Phoenix.
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