Five-star native Ohioan Jayden Quaintance considering Ohio State in 2024 class
Adam Jardy
Columbus Dispatch
Jayden Quaintance has no problem moving across the country if it comes to making him a better basketball player.
Now, there’s a chance it could lead him back home again. Quaintance, a five-star prospect who has reclassified to the class of 2024, will play his final season of prep basketball for Word of God Christian Academy in Raleigh, North Carolina. Prior to that, he played his previous two years of prep ball in Arizona.
But before all that, Quaintance was a burgeoning basketball prospect at the Hawken School in Northeast Ohio. His father, Haminn, spent his final three college basketball seasons at Kent State. And in the last several months,
Ohio State has started to recruit his 6-10, 210-pound son with an opportunity to return to Ohio for his college career.
Proximity won’t be a deciding factor when it comes to deciding what will come after the 2023-24 season, Haminn Quaintance said, but it doesn’t hurt, either.
“It obviously helps that he would be close to his family, but it’s not the end-all, be-all,” he said. “They’re going to have to recruit him as hard as all the other schools and they’re going to have to fit. It’s going to have to be a fit. I couldn’t put him in a bad situation based off of the location. We showed that we definitely don’t care about location when we went to Arizona.”
In his next breath, the elder Quaintance was clear: Ohio State is a serious contender to sign his son because of how the Buckeyes are recruiting him, not because of where they are located.
“We did a Zoom with them,” he said. “We saw their system. They have draft picks every year with coach (Chris) Holtmann. It’s not just about being in Ohio, it’s about basketball and what they have to offer – and Ohio State has a lot to offer from the basketball side.”
It’s been a busy summer for Jayden Quaintance, who won a gold medal with Team USA in the FIBA Men’s U16 Americas Championship and appeared in the 247Sports.com composite rankings as the No. 9 national prospect. His dad said it’s been a pattern of steady growth that led him to leave the state for other opportunities that has put him in position to be one of the nation’s top-rated recruits.
He also will end his prep career a year earlier than had been anticipated. Haminn Quaintance said his son had a chance to skip a grade while at Hawken due to his academic progress but the family opted not to move him up at the time. This summer, the family decided to take advantage of the opportunity based on the trajectory of his basketball career.
“On the basketball side, he’s always kind of been advanced in that aspect, too,” he said. “It was just the right time. He never played down. He’s always been playing up, so we’ll keep that going.
“I’m all about competition and the basketball atmosphere. We’re trying to get to the next level. Being a lottery pick, being the No. 1 pick, that’s what we’re going for. Obviously we want to have a successful college career, but it has to be something where we can get both.”
Moving from the 2025 class to 2024 hasn’t had much impact on the schools recruiting Jayden Quaintance, his dad said. Some have been more excited about recruiting him and just one school backed off due to depth chart projections, he said.
“It did change the way some people recruited us,” he said. “(Kentucky coach John) Calipari was really happy we were reclassing up. Ohio State, they were happy that we were reclassing up. We really ain’t do it for the schools, we’re just looking for the best situation so the schools that are recruiting us are the ones we evaluate, that along with the G-League Ignite.”
Ohio State entered the picture somewhat recently. Jayden Quaintance reported an offer from the Buckeyes in mid-May, and his dad said he wasn’t sure that the coaching staff had been aware of the family’s Ohio ties. Since then, Ohio State has been making up for lost time.
“To their credit, once they started they really started,” he said. “We weren’t in Ohio, so I don’t know if everybody knew that Jayden is an Ohio kid.”
Although Jayden Quaintance has now moved into the 2024 class, his father said the family isn’t in a hurry to make a decision. The primary focus in the coming months is to continue to get better on the court, he said, but his son will be taking visits this fall.
The Buckeyes are scheduled to get one of them.
Jayden Quaintance, one of the top-rated prospects in the 2024 class who is also from Ohio, will visit Ohio State this fall.
www.dispatch.com