Head men’s basketball coach Mark Christner has had some talented and successful players in his eight seasons at Waynesburg University.

Over the years, Christner saw the Jackets go from winning just two games the year before his arrival to a Presidents’ Athletic Conference championship game appearance in 2015. Of course, Christner needed proficient players to turn the ship around.

Two seniors on the team that finished second in the conference, Jacob Fleegle and Jason Propst, each reached the 1,000 point plateau – Propst ending with 1,124 points and Fleegle 1,059. Other successful athletes Christner has coached in his time at Waynesburg also include 2016 graduates B.J. Durham and D.J. Ritchie.

But the best might be a man who saw just 22 minutes of action on that 2014-2015 team.

If it’s a stretch to say that Jon Knab had a meteoric rise in his time at Waynesburg, it wouldn’t be much of one. Knab barely saw the court as a freshman. He started every game as a sophomore. By his junior year, he became one of the top players in the PAC, and finally, in his senior season, joined Fleegle and Propst as members of the 1,000 point club roughly two weeks ago at Thomas More.

“I think he’s been a guy that we least expected [to reach 1,000 points] in terms of where he started and where he ended,” Christner said. “He has worked really hard to put himself in a position where he can be pretty dependable and reliable.”

Knab ended the regular season with 1,049 points, ten behind Fleegle and 75 behind Propst. One could make the argument that Knab edges out both of them as the best player Christer has had as Jackets head coach, even though he has not surpassed them in overall point totals.

Fleegle is a natural player to compare with Knab. Both played the same position, wing, and both were similar in stature, with Fleegle standing at 6’5” and Knab 6’4”. The two were so similar that during the only season in which they were teammates, Knab guarded Fleegle “every day for 75 practices,” according to Christner.

“I think he probably mirrors [Fleegle] in some ways,” Christner said. “They’re both longish wing guys. I think they both come from a similar place from a character, faith standpoint as well. Both of them treat people well and have been really good representations of our program to the outside world.”

Knab tied Fleegle in scoring with a 10 point effort in the final game of his career against Bethany this past Tuesday, despite falling well short of Fleegle’s 109 appearances in a Yellow Jacket uniform. Knab also has a slight edge in the rebounding department, averaging around 4.2 rebounds compared to around 4 for Fleegle.

Comparing Knab with a player like Propst is a little more complicated.

Even though Propst, like Fleegle, was 6’5”, Propst played a different position than Fleegle and Knab at forward. Although Propst still is Christner’s all-time leading scorer at season’s end, Knab has the edge in scoring average, averaging 12.2 points compared to Propst’s 10.5. Despite playing more of a big man role, Knab holds his own against Propst in the rebounding department, as Propst ended his career averaging a little over a rebound more per game than Knab.

Christner didn’t say where Knab stacks up against other Waynesburg players of this past decade, but he sees him as a perfect example of a player who made the most of his chances.

“I don’t know if we can rank [the players],” Christner said. “He’s been great though. He’s been a best-case scenario… to kind of watch [him] five years ago and then think about what he would be now, that is the definition of faith probably.”