The Youngest Players In College Basketball

Every year, as the seasons begin to shift and the time change hurtles us all an hour ahead, score brackets begin to appear. Offices begin to pool together prizes and winnings for those who can best correctly fill out a March Madness tournament sheet. Guesses become wagers and all eyes quickly shift to finding who on the NCAA basketball rosters will bring their team to victory. As breakout stars like Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark have moved on to the WNBA, a new batch of young players is set to make history.

Already the 2024-2025 season has been full of ups and downs and remarkable players leaving their mark. While there are many celebrities we never knew were college athletes, there are many more aspiring athletes on the court today aiming for celebrity status. Among them are some incredibly young players. Whereas most people will find themselves entering college around 18 or 19, some athletes get recruited earlier than that and can even successfully finagle their way into an early high school graduation to get a head start. For March Madness 2025, there are certainly a few players boasting impressive stats, all while under the age of 19. Here are five of the youngest star players in college basketball.

At just 17, Jayden Quanitance is one of the youngest college basketball players for the 2024-2025 season. Born July 11, 2007, Quaintance was raised in Cleveland, Ohio, before ending up playing for the Arizona State Sun Devils. However, the star forward had to pull some fancy footwork to be able to play in the NCAA at such a young age. After catching the eyes of recruiters, Quaintance reclassified to be able to graduate high school in 2024 to speed up his college trajectory. However, ASU wasn't his initial school of choice.

In 2023, Quaintance signed a National Letter of Intent to play for the Kentucky Wildcats. It was his goal to be mentored by coach John Calipari; however, Calipari ended up leaving the school to become head coach for the Arkansas Razorbacks. This caused Quantiance to officially rescind his NLI and commit to ASU in the spring of 2024.

Quintaince joins the ranks of NBA stars Tim Duncan and Shaquille O'Neal who both got their start in college basketball at 17 — hopefully, Quaintance can avoid tragedy better than Shaq did.

Cooper Flagg started his freshman season playing for the Duke Blue Devils at just 17. Going into March Madness after turning 18 in December of 2024, Flagg already has quite the reputation for himself as a star player. According to Sports Illustrated, Flagg could declare for the 2025 NBA draft, his stats are so good. Should he go this route, there's a decent chance he'll snag a coveted first pick. However, should this be the choice he makes, there's a solid chance Flagg would need to leave college behind and just hop right into his career.

When asked by ESPN if he would consider returning to school should he be drafted by the NBA, Flagg offered a vague and wobbly answer.  "Listen, I'm just living in the moment," he said. "I'm going day by day with this team, practice by practice and we're gonna just finish out the year." It would be unlikely that Flagg would return to college should he get scooped up, making him one of many NBA stars like LeBron James who either skipped or left college early to pursue their dreams.

Lanie Grant was sought out by college basketball teams not long into her high school career. According to Keeping It Heel, Grant had made a commitment to the University of North Carolina at age 14 and, after being recruited by UNC's head coach Courtney Banghart, the 17-year-old opted to reclassify and graduate early. Per the Daily Tarheel, Banghart went to watch Grant play and after viewing one high school game she admitted, "I literally texted her mom and said, 'Your kid can help us right now,'" and that was enough to get things in motion to secure the star player.

Grant already shares similarities with other female basketball powerhouses like Cameron Brink, who has a special relationship with Steph Curry. Grant herself attended "Curry Camp" where she also got to build a working relationship with Curry himself. It seems like getting a head start prepared the point guard to enter the collegiate arena. "I'm being challenged on the court, but there's been so much support and so much love," Grant said to the Daily Tarheel about her time on the team so far. Being immersed in such a well-established team has Grant already working harder than most to secure a position for herself while at UNC and in the future.

Considered a five-star recruit and one of the best players in his high school graduating class, 18-year-old Airious "Ace" Bailey is setting out to do great things at a young age. After a remarkable stint at McEachern High School, the recruiters began crawling out of the woodwork to secure the rising star to their respective teams. Ultimately. Between a showdown between Ohio State, Oregon, Texas, and Kansas, Rutgers won out, with Bailey officially signing a letter of intent for the Scarlet Knights in 2023.

According to NJ.com, Bailey was considered a top-10 player when he graduated high school in 2024 and was ranked sixth nationally according to 247Sports Composite stats. This made him the highest-ranked recruit Rutgers has secured in recent history. It seems the extensive recruiting efforts of assistant coach Brandin Knight paid off, as he was able to sway Bailey with multiple trips to the school. In fact, Knight was able to get Bailey to confirm his commitment while Bailey attended a Rutgers versus Ohio State game. Seeing his future team snag victory was what it took to get Bailey to sign on — be sure to keep an eye on this team.

Born in South Sudan and growing up in Uganda, Khaman Maluach never expected to be playing basketball all around the globe. At a towering 7-foot-2 inches tall, Maluach has been able to easily slip onto any team and help secure victory, even though he got a late start at the sport. Boasting an already storied career at just 18, Maluach played for South Sudanese basketball club Cobra Sport in 2022, on two teams within the Basketball Africa League in 2023 and 2024, before officially announcing his commitment to Duke in March 2024.

According to Sports Illustrated, the towering center ultimately chose Duke due to the legacy of star player Zion Williamson. "I grew up not knowing anything about basketball, but when I started playing basketball, I saw highlights of Zion Williamson and him going to Duke," Maluach said. With Williamson and his stunning net worth being an amazing recruiting tool for the university, it makes sense that Maluach opted to attempt to create his own legacy at Duke over other offers from UCLA, Kansas, and Kentucky. All in all, it appears like the Duke Blue Devils have an incredibly stacked team this season, and hopefully well into the future (if they don't all get recruited by the NBA before graduation).