Jayden Quaintance, right, with Malachi Moreno. (UK Athletics Photo)
Arizona State transfer Jayden Quaintance has been bonding and building relationships with his new University of Kentucky teammates. However, he already had a strong bond with freshman Jasper Johnson.
“We are going to surprise a lot of people again,” Quaintance said Tuesday in his first UK press conference. “Jasper, me and him, we were 10-2 in (the Nike) EYBL. While we were there, we were number one in the EYBL. Just really effective.
“He’s a really good scorer. Always able to find people.”
Quaintance has also known UK freshman center Malachi Moreno for a long time because they played against each other in AAU.
“Iron sharpens iron. I am excited to see what it looks like when we are on the court together,” Quaintance, who is rehabbing from February ACL surgery, said. “It’s going to be really exciting for sure.”
While Quaintance knows Johnson and Moreno the best, he said it has not been hard to build relationships with other players.
“Everybody on this team has been making a conscious effort to get to know each other better and build as a team/I feel like I’m getting to know everybody a little bit more the more we’ve been here,” the 6-foot-9 Quaintance said.
He made the Big 12 All-Defensive Team last season despite being injured in February and once he decided to transfer, it did not take long for UK coach Mark Pope and Johnson both to reach out to him about coming to Kentucky.
“All those people reached out, just kind of seeing what I felt like and how seriously that they felt that I could help make an impact and contribute to this team,” Quaintance said. “I feel like that was when I started to look here a little bit more.”
I asked Quaintance if he and Johnson ever discussed playing in college — or even the NBA — together when they were playing AAU.
“Definitely. We talked about it because we are so successful. We all kind of talked about it. It was really interesting,” Quaintance said. “I met with him at USA (Basketball) when we did the camp for 18U. I’ve been around him a lot, and now it’s definitely a point of conversation.”
Quaintance admitted Johnson was a “big part” of his decision to attend UK
“He was definitely one of the first guys to reach out and try and get me out here. So that was a big part of it, for sure,” Quaintance said.
One Response
Word around practice is that Hawthorne is much better than they first believed. I mean he was the highest riser in all of high school basketball this year. I know it didn't matter if he was playing against the top prospect or the 100th prospect he was going to score regardless. He might be one of the better 3 point shooters on the team. I think Noah Williams Chandler Hawthorne and Johnson can all shoot lights out. If all of them can shoot near 40% this season is going to be a ton of 100+ point games. We might lead the NCAA in ppg. If you just count up what everyone averaged last year and say nobody gets better they play the exact same as last year we would average about 82 ppg. I can see us easily averaging around 90+ ppg.