With Florida having a lot of young pieces in their frontcourt set to return following the 2023-24 season it appeared the coaching staff was content to land somewhat of a more developmentary minded target. However, that changed this week as the staff decided to go star-hunting late in the cycle heading to North Carolina to see Jayden Quaintance, the 7th ranked player in the class of 2024 and the 2nd ranked center.
Golden and his staff haven’t been afraid of going after big-name targets since coming to Florida, and they also haven’t been scared to get involved in recruitments late. Sure, there is still plenty of time for 2024 players to make their commitments, but many are trying to wrap up their recruitment before their senior seasons get into full swings so they can focus on development.
Jayden Quaintance is someone who hasn’t been said to be involved with Florida up until this point, but that doesn’t mean he’s not seriously considering them. Not only did he schedule a visit to Gainesville for October 13th–but he cancelled a visit at Cincinnati in order to do it. Cincinnati was a school involved with Quaintance for a long time, but may be out of consideration–though with Quaintance already showing a lot of interest in Cincinnati for some time, perhaps he didn’t need another visit to gather any more information.
Other schools involved with Quaintance are Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio State, and South Florida who have stayed in the mix. Something complicating Quaintance’s recruitment is the fact that the G League Ignite program has been involved with Quaintance ever since he was 15 years old, and many think he is leaning towards going that route. This has led a lot of schools from backing off recruiting him–though it hasn’t stopped Florida from getting involved. The G League Ignite program has had a lot of talented names recently and can compensate their players well, though the NIL at high-major programs can easily match or exceed that number.
Ranked 7th in 2024, Quaintance already looks physically ready to start in the SEC tomorrow if he needed to. Listed at 6’9” and 230 pounds he looks every bit of that, and he carries the weight well. He already sees the game well and has had great development at Word Of God Christian Academy in Raleigh, and you can see him make great reads offensively when it comes to passing or looking to score, and defensively he doesn’t do too much as he stays within a structure and uses his size and mobility to control the lane.
Despite the fact that Quaintance already looks physically ready to play in college basketball, he’s actually young for his class–and that’s part of the reason he is such a sought-after recruit. Given his birth date, Quaintance isn’t eligible for the 2025 NBA Draft–he’d have to wait until the 2026 Draft. That means that whatever program gets him next, whether that’s a college team or the G League Ignite–they could have his services for two seasons. It’s not often that the 7th ranked player in a given class would stay in college (or G League Ignite) for multiple seasons, but Quaintance offers that possibility. Very few prospects offer both “floor” as a player who could contribute right away and also “ceiling” as someone who has All-American upside–but Quaintance does.
For that reason, it’s going to be a challenging recruitment. The heavy interest in the G League Ignite program alone has kept a lot of top programs from getting into the Quaintance sweepstakes, but clearly Golden and his staff want in on the game. Getting Quaintance to commit to an official visit is impressive work, and we’ll see if the Gators can get themselves into a position to possibly land this commitment.