John Calipari is trying his best to flip his former college basketball commits from Kentucky to Arkansas. He officially missed out on the best player.
Jayden Quaintance has officially eliminated the Razorbacks as an option.
The five-star recruit decommitted from the Wildcats after the shocking coaching shakeup. It is still possible that he could reaffirm his commitment to Mark Pope. They are working to set up a meeting.
Not Calipari!
Quaintance, one of the 10 best players in the country, is the second-ranked center in the recruiting Class of 2024. 21 schools offered him out of Word of God Christian Academy.
Quaintance initially visited Florida, Kentucky, Louisville, Memphis, Missouri, Ohio State and USF. It is unclear as to whether all of those schools remain in the mix now that the 6-foot-9 big is going through this process for a second time, but he is also going to visit with the Tigers.
The decision not to follow Calipari to Arkansas is rather telling.
Razorbacks fans have been laughing at their new head coach’s former school over the past two weeks. They have been adamant that all of his former commits were going to follow him. They said that players “commit to the coach, not the school.”
Although that may be true for some (perhaps most), it is clearly not true for all. Four-star small forward Karter Knox, brother to former Kentucky star Kevin Knox, followed Calipari to Fayetteville. Quaintance is not going to do the same. The Razorbacks are not of interest, even though Coach Cal is there.
What does that say about Arkansas? I’ll leave that up to your interpretation.
However, we know that John Tyson of Tyson Foods promised significant NIL funding to John Calipari. If money wasn’t an issue and Quaintance still chose to leave the Hogs off of his list, well…