A very interesting exercise and I agree it's totally subjective. Ayo could potentially crack the starting line-up with a superior junior season. However, I'm going with a starting 5 of:
G - Dee Brown
G - Deron Williams
G - Kendall Gill
F - Nick Anderson
C - Kofi Cockburn
We'd win 6 national titles out of every 10 played with this team. Nearly unstoppable!
I love Dee, but with Deron to run the point I think it has to be:
1) Deron
2) Kendal
3) Nick
4) Kenny (no way he does not start)
5) Kofi
Then give me these three off the bench:
6) Kenny Norman
7) Eddie Johnson
8) DerIck Harper
that gives you 2 points (Deron and Derick)
2 shooting guards (Kendal and Nick)
2 small forwards (Eddie and Kenny)
2 power forwards (Kenny and Kenny)
2 Centers (Kofi and Norman)
Side note, I would of loved to have Lucas Johnson on the 2005 team. He would have gotten under the skin of May and made him lose his mind.
I know it is never “right” to say this but Sean Pruitt was on the 2005 team. When Augustine got his second foul, I would have put Pruitt In with one goal. Break Mays arm, I mean really hard foul. Sean was not going to play anyways so why not make the refs pucker up. If Sean got ejected so what?
The dome would have been wild and the refs would have changed at that moment what May was allowed to get away with. There were 45,000 crazy Illinois fans. I know it is wrong to think that way, but we needed the one sided interior officiating to change and that would have done it.