{"id":352476,"date":"2026-06-27T08:43:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T08:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/352476\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T08:43:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T08:43:29","slug":"jayden-quaintance-selected-by-san-antonio-spurs-in-first-round-of-nba-draft-uk-athletics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/352476\/","title":{"rendered":"Jayden Quaintance Selected By San Antonio Spurs in First Round of NBA Draft \u2013 UK Athletics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LEXINGTON, Ky. \u2013 Kentucky men\u2019s basketball forward Jayden Quaintance heard his named called in the first round of the NBA draft on Tuesday night as the big man was selected by the San Antonio Spurs with the No. 20 overall pick.<\/p>\n<p>Quaintance spent his sophomore year at Kentucky in 2026, although he appeared in just four games for the Wildcats due to a knee injury. He averaged 5.0 points and 5.0 rebounds while playing an average of 16.8 minutes across the four games. In his Wildcat debut vs. No. 22\/20 St. John\u2019s, Quaintance scored 10 points, grabbed eight rebounds and blocked two shots, finishing plus-18 in 17 minutes of action to help UK to the upset win. The 6-foot-10 big went on to appear in games vs. Bellarmine, at Alabama and vs. Missouri.<\/p>\n<p>As a freshman at Arizona State, Quaintance started all 24 games in which he played, averaging 9.4 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.6 blocks and 1.5 assists while shooting 52.5 percent from the field. He was named to the Big 12 All-Freshman Team as well as the Big 12 All-Defensive Team, setting Arizona State freshman records for both total blocked shots (63) and rebounds per game (7.9).<\/p>\n<p>As a high schooler, Quaintance was a five-star prospect and a McDonald\u2019s All-American. He reclassified from the 2025 class to the 2024 class and was the youngest player in college basketball during his freshman season at Arizona State. Quaintance represented USA Basketball at the FIBA U16 Americas Championships, winning a gold medal.<\/p>\n<p>Quaintance is the highest NBA draft selection under Kentucky head coach Mark Pope and the first, opening-round pick. He joins Koby Brea and Amari Williams as NBA draft picks to play under Pope.<\/p>\n<p>Kentucky has had at least one player selected in 19 consecutive drafts, the longest streak in the nation.<\/p>\n<p>Quaintance will join a Spurs squad that went 62-20 this past season and reached the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n<p>For the latest on the Kentucky men\u2019s basketball team, follow\u00a0@KentuckyMBB\u00a0on <a href=\"https:\/\/nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fkentuckymbb&amp;data=05%7C01%7CDeb.Moore%40uky.edu%7C470b4bbbac864b4bcb3108db47fd1313%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C0%7C638182924490344127%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=vCtlKrA7xP6BbHrFRBsXshodW1x3UmbM4D8McN5UYwo%3D&amp;reserved=0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FKentuckyMBB%3Ffref%3Dts&amp;data=05%7C01%7CDeb.Moore%40uky.edu%7C470b4bbbac864b4bcb3108db47fd1313%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C0%7C638182924490344127%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=tq2aOstui0yluKRyosS05O8Qh4%2BUXGeMSQqw7VYCuus%3D&amp;reserved=0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Finstagram.com%2Fkentuckymbb&amp;data=05%7C01%7CDeb.Moore%40uky.edu%7C470b4bbbac864b4bcb3108db47fd1313%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C0%7C638182924490344127%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=apiazX04XCA3sUBJIA1W7AND%2Fw%2BZpvLe7uz9BBzG1ZE%3D&amp;reserved=0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40kentuckymbb&amp;data=05%7C01%7CDeb.Moore%40uky.edu%7C470b4bbbac864b4bcb3108db47fd1313%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C0%7C638182924490344127%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=bivhoWmLBWPwzSETjBv%2BJ0RZcwqlTVeF%2Bf%2F8QLdqYq0%3D&amp;reserved=0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">TikTok<\/a>, and on the web at <a href=\"https:\/\/nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ukathletics.com%2F&amp;data=05%7C01%7CDeb.Moore%40uky.edu%7C470b4bbbac864b4bcb3108db47fd1313%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C0%7C638182924490344127%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=zv8WoiTZPfI0PGUng4fbDs4EnA4nYbdGaGMSX58qxJw%3D&amp;reserved=0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UKathletics.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>  <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEXINGTON, Ky. \u2013 Kentucky men\u2019s basketball forward Jayden Quaintance heard his named called in the first round of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1492,1532,34711,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-352476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-featured","tag-headlines","tag-men-s-basketball","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}