Longtime college basketball head coach Mike Jarvis gives major praise to Charles Jenkins

 Courtesy Hofstra Athletic Communications

In his more than 20 years coaching college basketball at Boston University, George Washington, St. John’s and now Florida Atlantic Mike Jarvis has coached many talented players including some who wound up in the NBA, and he says Hofstra’s prolific guard Charles Jenkins would stand toe to toe with any of them.

The current Florida Atlantic head coach lauded Jenkins with major praise after the senior guard scored 32 points in a 63-59 Pride loss on Saturday. “He would have started for any one of my teams,” said Jarvis, who is most known for being the St. John’s head coach from 1998-2003.

Jarvis even went as far as to say that had Jenkins been in the backcourt at St. John’s in 1999 the Red Storm would have won the national title rather than get bounced by three points to Ohio State in the Elite Eight. “If we had him we would have won the national championship,” said Jarvis reflecting on that stacked 1999 St. John’s team that featured versatile guard Bootsie Thornton and future NBA players Ron Artest and Erick Barkley. “He would have been great with those players….He is really special.”

Jenkins, who has won the Haggerty Award given to top player in Metropolitan New York the last two seasons, is five points away from the 2,000 plateau for his career. The reigning Colonial Athletic Association Player of the Year is averaging 25.3 points per game in the Pride’s first nine games this season. Hofstra is next in action at Manhattan College this Saturday at 7 p.m.