Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball coach Mark Pope was on the Eye on College Basketball podcast with Matt Norlander on Thursday, and spoke on a number of subjects. One of those was Jayden Quaintance who transferred to Kentucky this offseason after playing for Arizona State as a Freshman.
Quaintance was formerly a five-star recruit and was one of the best defensive players in the country. However, he suffered a serious knee injury in February, and might not be ready to open the season. Norlander asked Pope about Quaintance and his potential return. Pope first told a hilarious story about driving first, though.
I want to put this in proper perspective, ok? I am a very amateur chess..I don’t really know much about the game. I know how to move the pieces, and I’m fascinated by playing. The first player I ever played that’s given me a real challenge is Collin Chandler. I happen to be lucky, up 3-2 on Collin. And then we’ve taken a hiatus, because it started to get a little…there was starting to be some emotion involved. JQ is up five on me. He is a savant. I kid you not, and it’s driving me crazy. I can’t even look at him. I’m so upset with him. Ok, so we’re coming from a place of this being one of the smartest, spacially…being able to have a lot of calculations in his head all at the same time. With that said, he is not a talented driver.
He also told a story of Quaintance driving a golf cart and coach Mark Fox calling Pope to tell him “We have got to get JQ out of the driver’s seat.” After that, he went to Florida to take his driving test, and failed after backing over a cone.
Pope also gave a brief update on Quaintance’s knee injury and recovery.
It’s really important that he gets a full recovery. So it’s going to be a little while. Every intention is that he’ll be on the floor this upcoming season. I have every expectation that he’ll play this season. I don’t think he’s going to play all the games this season, but we’ll see. He’s made great progress and he’s kinda crossing off all the benchmarks as he goes.
He added that Quaintance isn’t doing anything live yet, but is doing work strength work. He said there’s hope that he’s ready by the end of November, but no guarantees.