This incoming UK basketball transfer offers the most potential for the Wildcats
Mark Pope’s second Kentucky basketball team, much like the first, will be loaded with some of the best transfer portal additions in the country.
This much is clear from the early preseason prognostications that have surfaced this spring for the Wildcats. The praise is also universal for Kentucky’s incoming group of six transfers.
Junior guard Denzel Aberdeen (Florida), sophomore forward Mouhamed Dioubate (Alabama), sophomore guard Jaland Lowe (Pittsburgh), sophomore center Reece Potter (Miami), freshman big man Jayden Quaintance (Arizona State) and freshman wing Kam Williams (Tulane) all committed to Kentucky out of the portal this spring.
From this group, it’s Quaintance who stands out for his skill and still untapped potential.
The 6-foot-10 Quaintance was once, temporarily, a Wildcat. He committed to and signed with UK as part of Kentucky’s six-player 2024 high school recruiting class under former coach John Calipari. Of course, that recruiting class fell apart when Calipari made the decision to leave UK for Arkansas after 15 seasons leading the Wildcats.
The fallout from that saw Quaintance spend his freshman season at Arizona State. While the Sun Devils didn’t win much last season — Bobby Hurley’s group went 13-20 overall and a woeful 4-17 against Big 12 Conference foes — Quaintance more than lived up to the hype as a five-star, top-10 national recruit out of high school.
Quaintance averaged 9.4 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.6 blocks, 1.5 assists and 1.1 steals for the Sun Devils last season, starting all 24 games he played while logging 29.7 minutes per contest. He led Arizona State in rebounding, blocks and steals while shooting 52.5% from the floor and 18.8% on a low volume of 3-pointers.
Oh, and he accomplished all this while being the youngest player in college basketball during the 2024-25 season. Quaintance played last season as a 17-year-old after previously reclassifying from the 2025 to the 2024 high school recruiting group.
Quaintance, who was named to the Big 12 Conference All-Freshman Team and All-Defensive Team, won’t turn 18 until July.
Last season, his 63 blocks combined with 27 steals made Quaintance the only player in the nation to reach a combined 90 blocks and steals in less than 25 games.
There’s plenty to like, both statistically and on tape, from Quaintance’s freshman season at Arizona State. And the analytics back this up as well.
College basketball statistician Evan Miyakawa is bullish on Quaintance’s individual projections for next season, as well as that for Pope’s entire Kentucky transfer portal class.
Miyakawa has Quaintance ranked as the No. 10 overall player available in the transfer portal this offseason. This makes Quaintance the top transfer addition for Kentucky, per Miyakawa’s rankings. Miyakawa has UK’s incoming six-player portal class ranked as the second-best in the country, behind only Michigan.
“(This) is taking into account both the level of players they’re bringing in, but also the quantity matters,” Miyakawa told the Herald-Leader about UK’s incoming portal class.
Quaintance — who boasts a 7-foot-5 wingspan — jumps off the page in a number of ways in Miyakawa’s projections. Chief among these is the Bayesian Performance Rating, which is the key statistic Miyakawa uses to measure the value of a player.
BPR is defined on EvanMiya.com as “the ultimate measure of a player’s overall value to his team when he is on the floor.” Each player’s BPR value represents the number of points per 100 possessions better than the opponent a player’s team is expected to be if the player were on the court with nine other average players.
Quaintance’s projected BPR for next season is 6.21, which is the 10th-best among more than 2,300 transfer portal players.
Within Miyakawa’s profile for Quaintance, one projection for next season stands out above the rest. Of the more than 2,300 players who entered the portal this offseason, Miyakawa projects that Quaintance will have the best Defensive Bayesian Performance Rating next season.
DBPR — which is part of the overall BPR number — measures defensive value as a representation of how many defensive points per 100 possessions better than the Division I average a player is.
Miyakawa projects Quaintance to be 3.82 defensive points per 100 possessions better than the Division I average next season.
“With the information that we have about how (Quaintance) has produced in his freshman year, along with the high recruiting profile that he had coming out of high school, you can combine all those factors to predict how players like him often do in their second year of college, especially if they transfer,” Miyakawa explained.
“When you take into account how good he was at Arizona State in year one, especially on the defensive end, and then the potential that he still has to reach that a lot of guys get to in year two, with his profile coming out of high school, the potential for him, especially on the defensive end, is just extremely, extremely high. I predict (Quaintance) to be one of the most impactful defenders in the entire country next year on a per possession basis.”
The closest portal player to Quaintance in Miyakawa’s model is freshman forward Morez Johnson Jr. (Illinois to Michigan) with a DBPR of 3.2. Quaintance and Johnson are the only portal players with a projected DBPR above 3 for next season.
“He’s got all the tools to just be an absolute physical menace, especially on defensive end,” Miyakawa added about Quaintance.
Quaintance isn’t the only major defensive pickup via the portal for Pope and UK either. Dioubate, the sophomore forward from Alabama, has a projected DBPR of 2.79 for next season, which ranks fourth among portal players.
Will Jayden Quaintance be healthy to start the season for Kentucky?
There’s a major elephant in the room regarding all of the hype and projections for Quaintance ahead of his sophomore season.
He’s coming off a torn ACL.
Quaintance injured his knee while playing for Arizona State in February and he underwent surgery on March 19.
Indications from a variety of sources — including from Quaintance’s father, Haminn — are that Quaintance should be cleared to handle basketball contact in September. This would put Quaintance on course to be ready for the start of the UK season in the fall.
During his first press conference of the offseason on May 13, Pope was asked about Quaintance’s expected return timeline.
“The one thing I know about him, he’s an incredible talent,” Pope said of Quaintance. “We’re going to go as fast as we can, with the absolute most caution that we can. He’s working really hard. He’s making tremendous progress right now… He’s just a really special person. So we’re going to race back to 100% health, as fast as we can.”
Kentucky will be hoping to have Quaintance available for the start of next season, especially given the gauntlet of early opponents that UK is scheduled to face.
UK has a preseason exhibition against Purdue set for Oct. 24 at Rupp Arena. Kentucky also has marquee regular-season matchups at Louisville (Nov. 11) and against Michigan State in New York City (Nov. 18) in the early part of its schedule.
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This story was originally published May 19, 2025 at 6:45 AM.
