Next in the series is to select the all-time starting five for John Kuester and for Mike Jarvis.  Remember the important rule that a player gets assigned to the coach who recruited him and not necessarily who he played the greatest number of games or seasons.  This is especially important for John Kuester who recruited two very important players who will best be remembered for playing on GW's lone Sweet 16 team, coached by Mike Jarvis.

Kuester Team:

PG   Ellis McKennie
SG   Dirkk Surles
C     Max Blank
SF   Sonni Holland
PF   Glen Sitney

Also considered:  Rodney Patterson, Mike Jones

Yes, we luck out on having Dirkk and Sonni be the property of the Kuester team.  Ellis is the one player most closely associated with the Kuester era, and could essentially play anywhere on the floor including at the point.  Max Blank has got to be our center because, who else if not Max?  The post Mike Brown, pre-Yinka Dare era for GW bigs was an unfortunate one.   Max was a high school teammate of Ellis's (though Max was two years older) who averaged 30 points a game during his senior year of high school.  A Russian Jew, there was a great deal of publicity surrounding Max's arrival at GW including a Sports Illustrated story.  As LSF has mentioned, a devastating injury during a high school all star game severely impacted the balance of Max's playing career.  He averaged just under 20 minutes of playing time per game, and was good for around 7 points and 5-6 boards a game.  Glen narrowly beats out Mike Jones due largely to being a better overall scorer.  Mike makes it close because he really improved throughout his career, averaging double figures in points during his junior and senior seasons.  Rodney Patterson could not break through this starting backcourt but his story was an inspirational one.  He enjoyed a solid freshman season, despite playing on the infamous 1-27 team, averaging 8.2 points, 4.6 assists and 1.3 steals per game.  By his junior year, his playing time had diminished a bit as Alvin Pearsall became Mike Jarvis's choice to run his team.  Shortly before the start of his senior season, Rodney thought he may have had a respiratory illness but this turned out to be T-cell lymphoblastic lymphona, a cancer that strikes 1 of every 100,000 people in general, and one can only assume 1 in millions of college athletes.  His senior season was lost but he enrolled in graduate school and remained with the program despite not playing.  Finally, with GW 17 seconds away from defeating Southern University and making it's first and only Sweet 16 appearance,  Mike Jarvis sent Rodney into the game.  This program arguably has never seen a more inspirational appearance before or since.


Mike Jarvis Team:

PG    Shawnta Rogers
SG    Kwame Evans
C      Yinka Dare
SF    Vaughn Jones
PF    Yegor Mescherikov

Also considered:  Alexander Koul, Mike King, Bill Brigham, Antxon Iturbe, Nimbo Hammons, Alvin Pearsall

4 of the 5 are no-brainers in my mind.  Alvin was so steady and consistent but Shawnta was an absolute game-changer.  Sasha Koul had a more polished offensive game than Yinka but Yinka's dunks alone could change the momentum of a game (let balone his shot blocking prowess).  Mike King and Nimbo Hammons were both shooting guards who I considered for the small forward spot but neither was beating Kwame out at the 2.  And Yegor may have played like a 3 but had the build of a 4.  His game would translate very well today to the 4.  Brigham was a more natural fit at the 4 but just not nearly the player that Yegor was.  Iturbe was a glue guy with smarts but a clear cut below this starting 5.

So, this boiled down to Vaughn, Nimbo and Mike King for the 5th spot.  King has the best offensive numbers and was a heck of a defender as well.  However, his senior year was less than memorable playing for Penders while Vaughn simply got better and better.  Nimbo had the better scoring average and was a better rebounder than Vaughn but Vaughn gets the nod for being the ultimate team player on some highly successful teams.  Vaughn did a little bit of everything, played great defense (his defense was quite a bit better than Nimbo's), and made a number of very clutch plays for GW.  Really tough call for the 5th spot.

OK, how did I do?  Agree or disagree with the picks?  Anyone I forgot about entirely who deserves some consideration?  Feel free to chime in.