{"id":79816,"date":"2026-04-11T18:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T18:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/isport.com.ng\/?p=79816"},"modified":"2026-04-11T18:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T18:32:10","slug":"could-a-return-to-kentucky-be-in-the-cards-for-jayden-quaintance-with-his-draft-stock-falling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/isport.com.ng\/?p=79816","title":{"rendered":"Could a return to Kentucky be in the cards for Jayden Quaintance with his draft stock falling?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 class=\"my-2.5 text-darkGrey font-group-gigantic\">Could a return to Kentucky be in the cards for Jayden Quaintance with his draft stock falling?<\/h1>\n<div class=\"article-intro mb-4 text-darkGrey font-group-big md:font-group-normal lg:font-group-big\">Mark Pope could be hoping to see Jayden Quaintance back next season.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\">Heading into this season of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/isport.com.ng\/?p=79641\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kentucky\u00a0<\/a>basketball, Big Blue Nation was very excited to see Jayden Quaintance take the floor. Quaintance was a name familiar to Kentucky fans as he was committed to play for John Calipari, but before Cal made the move to Arkansas, Quaintance flipped to Arizona State.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\">As a freshman at ASU, Quaintance turned heads but then went down with an ACL tear toward the end of the season. He got surgery and hit the transfer portal, picking\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/isport.com.ng\/?p=79641\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kentucky<\/a>. The hope was to get Quaintance back toward the end of non-conference play, and this was the case as he made his debut against St. John\u2019s. He proceeded to only play in four games before his surgically repaired knee swelled up, and he did not see any more action for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\">Before the season started, Quaintance was a projected top five pick in the NBA Draft, but he has fallen outside of the top 15 due to the fact that he only played four games and how elite this draft class is. This has some fans wondering if there is a chance that Quaintance could think about returning to Lexington next season.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\">Personally, I still don\u2019t believe this is going to happen, but there are some arguments that could be made to make this make more sense. First, if Quaintance was going to head to the NBA Draft and give up his college eligibility, I feel like he would have already made some kind of announcement. Obviously, I expect him to at least test the waters, but his stock continues to fall.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\">The other interesting thing is that aside from Malachi Moreno, likely returning to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/isport.com.ng\/?p=79641\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kentucky\u00a0<\/a>the staff hasn\u2019t been active at center in the portal. Knowing they will definitely need another five aside from Moreno, it is interesting that early into the portal, the staff hasn\u2019t been active at the five.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"overflow-hidden undefined\"><\/div>\n<div>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\">This 2026 draft class is one of the strongest ever, while the 2027 draft class is looking weak. If Quaintance came back to college and put up some monstrous numbers once fully healthy, he could go in the top five of the 2027 draft and receive a lot more money from the league.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\">While right now it still seems like the most likely outcome for Quaintance will be heading to the NBA Draft, it is not crazy to say there is a world where he could return for another year of college hoops. We will get some clarity soon, but this is something to monitor over the next few days\/weeks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Could a return to Kentucky be in the cards for Jayden Quaintance with his draft stock falling? Mark Pope could be hoping to see Jayden Quaintance back next season. Heading &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":79817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[172],"class_list":["post-79816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-kentucky"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Could a return to Kentucky be in the cards for Jayden Quaintance with his draft stock falling? - iSport<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Heading into this season of\u00a0Kentucky\u00a0basketball, Big Blue Nation was very excited to see Jayden Quaintance take the floor. 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