Five-star 2024 center Jayden Quaintance – who reclassified from the 2025 class – is one of the best big men in the cycle, and Ohio State has been heavily recruiting the 6-foot-9, 230-pound center ever since it offered Quaintance in mid-May.
After his dad, Haminn – who played basketball at Kent State – said that the Buckeyes are a "serious contender" for one of the youngest players in the 2024 class, Quaintance will visit Ohio State Sept. 9, according to The Columbus Dispatch's Adam Jardy.
The Buckeyes have been making up for lost time after Quaintance reclassified and it appears that the coaching staff's hard work has been noticed due to the fact that the five-star center is set to visit Columbus in less than two weeks.
Quaintance will have spent much of his high school career outside of Ohio (two seasons in Arizona and the upcoming season at Word of God Christian Academy in Raleigh, North Carolina). That said, the No. 3 center (No. 12 overall) in the 2024 class is an Ohio native, having played at Hawken School in Northeast Ohio before moving out of state.
“To (OSU's) credit, once they started they really started,” Haminn said. “We weren’t in Ohio, so I don’t know if everybody knew that Jayden is an Ohio kid.
Along with Ohio State, Quaintance holds offers from Alabama, Baylor, Cincinnati, Kansas, Kentucky and Oregon, among others.
He will be the second center in the 2024 class to have an official visit to Ohio State scheduled over the next couple of months. Four-star center Trent Burns is set to visit Columbus Oct. 7-9.
With combo guard Juni Mobley (No. 45 overall) and forward Colin White (No. 153 overall) already committed to Ohio State in the 2024 class. Mobley and White could potentially be the only two high school commits in the cycle for the Buckeyes but it's also a possibility that Chris Holtmann and company decide to add a big man to the class as well. Along with Quaintance and Burns' upcoming visits, the Buckeyes also made the top four for four-star forward Jacob Cofie, so it appears that OSU's coaching staff is clearly looking to add some size to its 2024 class.
