Perspective for Jayden Quaintance's return from ACL surgery

Jayden Quaintance suffered a tear to his Anterior Cruciate Ligament on February 23, 2025, in a game against Kansas State. He had 18 points, two shy of his career-high, before going down. The dreaded ACL tear diagnosis is one of the last things elite athletes want to hear as it almost always costs him or her a full year of playing the sport they love. The average time it takes to return to action is 9 to 12 months from the date of injury, however, some people recover quicker while it takes others much longer.

Quaintance says his doctors tell him he should be cleared for contact in September and that his goal is to be ready by the start of the season, but Kentucky fans still snakebitten by the Shaedon Sharpe drama are understandably skeptical of that optimistic timeline.

So, let’s have a quick medical lesson and conduct an amateur case study on athletes who tore their ACLs and their road to recovery. We can then apply our knowledge to Jayden Quaintance’s situation and try to project when Big Blue Nation can expect to see him in a Kentucky uniform in a real game inside Rupp Arena.

What is the ACL, and how do you fix it when it tears?

The ACL connects the thigh bone (femur) to the shin bone (tibia). It stabilizes the knee by preventing excessive forward movement of the tibia and controlling rotation during activities like running, jumping, or pivoting. It is essential for sports requiring quick changes in direction.

Tearing it is no good. The surgery to fix it involves replacing the torn ligament with a graft, which is tissue used to create a new ligament. This graft usually comes from the person’s own body (autograft), like a piece of the knee tendon, hamstring tendon, or quadriceps tendon. Sometimes, a donor graft (allograft) is used instead.

Recovery time is largely dependent on how well the graft adapts to its new place in the body. For some, it matures nicely, while other knees borderline reject its newfound tendon. When this happens, it results in an extended time to get back to full mobility.

Former Kentucky players’ recovery times following ACL tears

A few former Kentucky players have suffered ACL tears in recent memory, but only one of them occurred while wearing a Wildcat jersey. Let’s revisit.

Nerlens Noel | 20 months – I still remember Noel falling underneath the basket in February 2013 against Florida while chasing down a block on a fast break and thinking that knees weren’t meant to bend that way. Nerlens’s ACL tear caused him to fall in the NBA draft and miss his entire rookie NBA season. His recovery timeline is a little skewed because the Philadelphia 76ers weren’t in a hurry to rush back their first-round pick and risk re-injury, but he did suffer the injury in the same month as Jayden Quaintance.

Jamal Murray | 18 months – Murray suffered an ACL tear during the NBA Playoffs in April 2021, and missed the entire 2021-2022 NBA season. He returned to action in October 2022 in the first game of the regular season but on a minute restriction. Murray very much eased back into playing because, according to him, the mental recovery was as severe as the physical one. He had to slowly gain confidence to be able to fully cut, jump, and come to quick stops at full speed. It didn’t happen right away.

Bryce Hopkins | 11 months – Hopkins played his freshman year at Kentucky but never quite materialized to a Calipari-marketed one-and-done. He transferred to Providence and turned into a very good player but tore his ACL in January 2024. Exactly 11 months to the day of his injury he returned to the Providence lineup, but he only played three games before re-injuring his knee, forcing him to miss the rest of the season. He entered the transfer portal for his final year of eligibility.

Other athletes’ recovery times following ACL tears

Derrick Rose | 18 months – The Calipari point guard who put Calipari point guards on the map tore his ACL in April of 2012. Similar to Jamal Murray, he missed the entirety of the following season and never quite returned to his previous MVP form.

Kristaps Porzingis | 20 months – The big man affectionately known as the Unicorn is another big man who suffered an ACL injury in the month of February. Similar to Nerlens Noel, he missed the entirety of the following 2019-20 season. I’m not suggesting that every big man who suffers an ACL tear in February can’t be ready to return by the next season, but trends are trends.

Zach LaVaine | 11 months – Your astrology-loving grandmother could probably explain it to you, but there must be some kind of cosmic correlation between the month of February and basketball players tearing ACLs. Zach Lavine tore his in February 2017 but returned to the court in January 2018. He went on to become an NBA All-Star in 2021.

Adrian Peterson | 9 months – He’s not a basketball player, but Adrian Peterson has one of the best success stories of any high-profile athlete coming off an ACL injury. Peterson went down with an ACL tear in December 2011 but returned to the NFL football field in the first game in 2012 and went on to win the NFL MVP that year.

Quicker returns increase the risk of re-injury

Some athletes have returned to sport in as little as six months, but those were simple tears. No one has confirmed Jayden Quaintance’s tear to be of the simple variety, and any whispers claiming this to be the case are more than likely the result of wishful thinking.

According to prestigious academic medical institutions, returning from ACL injury before the knee is fully recovered puts it at serious risk of re-injury. One study showed the re-injury rate was significantly reduced by 50% for each month the return to sport was delayed until nine months after surgery. After that, there was no meaningful difference.

Bryce Hopkins did not re-tear his ACL after playing three games with the Fryers following his 11-month court absence, but the worry was certainly there. He suffered what the team called a bone bruise and according to his coach, “We didn’t want it to be a thing where Bryce is managing his knee game to game playing half a season.”

If Kentucky fans are hopeful to see Jayden Quaintance in a Kentucky uniform, they might want to get ready for a healthy dose of “injury management.”

Jayden Quaintance’s ACL injury and return timeline

Let’s do some math.

Jayden Quaintance tore his ACL in February. His dad told ESPN that he had successful surgery on March 19th. If you take the lower end of the average recovery time, nine months, that puts him returning to live game action for Kentucky in November. This would be ideal, although likely still force him to miss the start of the season. If you stretch that out to nine months from surgery to reduce the risk of re-injury, that means he would come back mid-to-late December.

Don’t forget that Quaintance is a projected lottery pick in the 2026 NBA draft. His stock will be something he has to keep in mind when deciding if/when to return. In a perfect world, he confirms to everyone that he is an elite talent on the big stage of Kentucky and goes on to reach his NBA draft potential. However, a pessimistic viewpoint might suggest he pulls a Shaedon Sharpe and doesn’t risk hurting his draft stock by playing hobbled minutes at Kentucky.

All of these return timeline considerations don’t even factor in conditioning, learning Mark Pope’s system, garnering chemistry with his teammates, and all of the other non-knee-related aspects of basketball.

Quaintance told the Field of 68 his rehab is going great, I will trust his doctors’ expertise over Dr. Google and anecdotal examples of other players. However, it might help to keep some historical perspective around ACL tears in mind. I don’t want Big Blue Nation to look at this through blue-tinted glasses and end up disappointed if Quaintance’s initial optimistic timeline doesn’t play out.

Every player’s recovery is different, and maybe Jayden’s 17-year-old knees will heal faster than most. In the meantime, my science brain will be praying to the ACL recovery gods for a quick return.