Projected NBA lottery pick Jayden Quaintance made his first appearance for the Kentucky men’s basketball team against St. John’s on Saturday afternoon.
Quaintance — a 6-foot-10 transfer from Arizona State — checked into the game with 15:01 left in the first half and the Wildcats trailing 8-4. It was his first appearance in a game since Feb. 23, when he suffered a torn ACL against Kansas State.
He had surgery on March 19, nine months and one day before making his UK debut.
Quaintance scored his first basket as a Wildcat with 14:23 to play in the first half on a short jumper. In his first stint, he played two minutes and had two points and a block.
As a 17-year-old freshman, Quaintance averaged 9.3 points, 7.8 rebounds and 2.6 blocked shots per game for the Sun Devils. He was fifth nationally among high-major players in block percentage and has the potential to be one of the best defenders in the country this season.
ESPN updated its Top 100 list for the 2026 NBA draft this week and ranked Quaintance at No. 9 overall. While a clear top three has emerged for this year’s draft — Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, BYU forward AJ Dybantsa and Duke forward Cameron Boozer — Quaintance should have an opportunity to work his way into the top-five conversation with a successful sophomore season at Kentucky.
He was too young to enter the NBA draft last season and didn’t turn 18 years old until July.
During his weekly press conference Thursday morning, UK coach Mark Pope left the door open for Quaintance to make his debut St. John’s, though Pope said his top NBA prospect would be on a minutes restriction when he did make his return to the court.
“When he goes, he’s going to be on a restriction, for sure,” he said. “Just because there’s the conditioning part. When you haven’t hit guys and run around and changed direction and responded to unpredictable movements, fatigue is your enemy. And it’s not just fatigue with the injury you’re recovering from, it’s fatigue with every part of your body. Because some of your natural instincts are just going to be declined, right?”
Pope went on to say that Quaintance’s “safety is paramount” in this situation. “I also don’t need to protect him. He’s a monster, right? So, both of those things are true. We’re just going to be really smart and intentional about how we do this.”
Quaintance made his season debut in Kentucky’s 12th game. The Wildcats were 7-4 heading into Saturday’s game against No. 22 St. John’s — with an 0-4 record in their previous matchups with Top 25 teams this season — and fell out of the national rankings for the first time in Pope’s tenure last week.
UK has one more nonconference game remaining — a meeting with Bellarmine on Tuesday in Rupp Arena — and then the 18-game SEC schedule begins with a trip to Alabama on Jan. 3.