2021-22 AUS men's basketball major awards and all-stars announced

Cape Breton’s Osman Omar named AUS MVP

(HALIFAX, N.S.) - Atlantic University Sport is pleased to announce the 2021-22 AUS men's basketball all-stars and major award winners as selected by the conference's eight head coaches following regular season play.

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER: Osman Omar, Cape Breton University

Osman Omar, a fourth-year guard with the Cape Breton Capers, has been named the 2021-22 AUS men's basketball most valuable player.

A community studies student from Mississauga, Ontario, this year Omar led the conference in scoring, with 24.5 points per game (the fourth-most in the country). Averaging 34.3 minutes per game, he was also the AUS leader field goals made, with 120, and free-throws made, completing 106 out of 124 attempts from the line.

He finished fourth in the conference in steals, with 1.7 per game, and averaged 5.3 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game.

In addition to receiving the conference's top honour, today Omar was also named an AUS first team all-star for the second time in his career. He was previously named a first team all-star for the 2018-2019 season and earned second team honours for the 2019-2020 season.

Omar is only the second-ever Cape Breton player to be named the AUS MVP for men's basketball. Capers standout Jimmy Dorsey won the honour in back-to-back season from 2011-2013. He now becomes the AUS representative for the Mike Moser Memorial Trophy as the most outstanding player in U SPORTS basketball. The last Atlantic conference player to win the national award was William Njoku of the Saint Mary's Huskies in 1992-93.

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Norm Burry, University of New Brunswick

The 2021-22 AUS rookie of the year is Norm Burry from the UNB REDS.

A six-foot-four forward from Grafton, New Brunswick, Burry started in 10 regular-season games for the REDS and played in all 15.

In his first year with UNB, he finished second in the AUS in three-point shooting percentage with 48.9, going 23-47 from behind the arc. He also finished seventh in the conference on free-throw shooting, going 49-65 for 75.4 percent. He averaged 12.7 points per game and recorded 68 total rebounds on the season.

Burry helped lead the REDS to a 7-8 record to finish seventh on the season. They will face the second-seeded STFX X-Men in the AUS quarterfinals on Thursday.

He is the first UNB player to take home AUS rookie of the year honours since the 2016-17 season when the late Jamaal Potopsingh earned the award for the REDS.

Burry will now represent the conference as the AUS nominee for the Dr. Peter Mullins trophy as U SPORTS rookie of the year. UNB and AUS standout Javon Masters is the only UNB player to ever earn the award, receiving the honour in the 2013-14 season.

The last player from the Atlantic conference to be named U SPORTS rookie of the year was Saint Mary's Nikita Kasongo, who took home the award in 2017-18.

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Samuel Maillet, Dalhousie Tigers 

Samuel Maillet of the Dalhousie Tigers men's basketball team is the 2021-22 AUS men's basketball defensive player of the year.

A second-year guard from Moncton, New Brunswick, Maillet averaged 1.6 steals and 3.4 defensive rebounds per game this season for Dalhousie. He also finished third in the conference in blocks with 12 and averaged 5 rebounds per game. 

The Tigers were a defensive force in the regular season, leading the league with a points-against average of 68.8.

Maillet is the third player from the Tigers to be named AUS defensive player of the year. Xavier Ochu last earned the honour for the Tigers in the 2019-2020 season, while Ritchie Kanza Mata earned the honour twice—in 2014-15 and 2016-17.

He now becomes the AUS conference nominee for the U SPORTS defensive player of the year award. Cape Breton’s Phil Nkrumah and STFX's Garry Gallimore are the only AUS players to have been named U SPORTS defensive player of the year since the award’s inception in 2004-05.

STUDENT-ATHLETE COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD: Osman Omar, Cape Breton Capers

Osman Omar of the Cape Breton Capers is the 2021-22 recipient of the AUS student-athlete community service award and will be the Atlantic conference nominee for the prestigious Ken Shields Award.

A six-foot-two guard from Mississauga, Ontario, he was also named the AUS’s most valuable player for the 2021-22 season.

In addition to his dominant presence on the basketball court, Omar has become a prominent figure in Canadian sports media thanks to his digital storytelling with Pure Jumper Media. He created the platform to highlight the stories of standout athletes across Canada, but has since shifted to dig deeper into the backstories and upbringings that led these athletes to where they are today. His latest video, a profile on the tragedy and triumph of Western University basketball standout and fellow Somali-Canadian Omar Shiddo, was featured as part of SportsNet’s Black History Month coverage.

Together with Shiddo, Omar has teamed up with Mending a Crack in the Sky, a Toronto-based non-profit that supports families impacted by gun violence. The two U SPORTS stars and country-leading point scorers have committed to donating $3 for every point scored this season to the organization.

Omar is also currently working with Justice Fund TO, a non-profit that supports communities in conflict with the law, to help the organization tell success stories from minority communities in the Toronto area.

On top of his advocacy and creative work, Omar shares his love of the game with youth both in Ontario and Cape Breton. During summer and winter breaks, he leads free basketball camps for members of his mosque in Mississauga and has also been a lead coach for the Capers Basketball School throughout the school year.

A fifth-year student pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in community studies, Omar is also a two-time Academic All-Canadian.

Omar is the third player from the Cape Breton Capers to be honoured with the AUS student-athlete community service award. Past winners include Scott Jaspers-Fayer (2010-11) and Mark McGarrigle (2007-2008). He now becomes the AUS nominee for the national Ken Shields Award. No Cape Breton player has ever won the national honour.

Nine former AUS athletes have previously earned the honour. Former Tigers standout Sven Stammberger was the most recent from the Atlantic conference winner of the national Ken Shields Award. He won in 2017-18.

COACH OF THE YEAR: Rick Plato, Dalhousie Tigers

In his ninth season at the helm of the Dalhousie program, Rick Plato has been selected by his peers as the AUS coach of the year for the fourth time in his career.

This year, the AUS defending champions finished with a 12-2 regular-season record and a first-place finish in the conference standings. They averaged 83.4 points per game, 34.5 rebounds per game and had the second-highest free-throw percentage (75.9) and three-point percentage (33.3) in the conference. Dalhousie also had the best field goal percentage in the AUS at 46.7.

The Tigers were also a force to be reckoned with defensively, allowing a conference low points-against average of 68.8.

Under coach Plato's leadership, the Tigers have taken home five of the last six AUS championship titles and a national silver and bronze medal. This week, they’ll go into the 2022 Subway AUS Championship ranked fifth in the country.

Plato first earned the conference's coach of the year honour in back-to-back seasons in 2015-16 and 2016-17 and again in 2019-2020. He will now represent the AUS as the nominee for U SPORTS coach of the year, an award he won after the 2019-2020 season.

FIRST AND SECOND TEAM ALL-STARS AND ALL-ROOKIE TEAM

First Team All-Stars   
Osman Omar, Cape Breton (4^th year –, Mississauga, ON)
Alex Carson, Dalhousie (5^th year, Lower Sackville, NS)
Elijah Miller, UPEI (2^nd year, Rexdale, ON)
Keevan Veinot, Dalhousie (4^th year, Port Williams, NS)
Cole Long, Memorial (5^th year, St. John’s, NL)

Second Team All-Stars
Nikita Kasongo, Saint Mary’s (4^th year, Montreal, QC)
Justin Andrew, StFX (5^th year, Hamilton, ON)
Jace Colley, Saint Mary’s (3^rd year, East Preston, NS)
Chris Spurrell, UNB (5^th year, Quispamsis, NB)
Shamar Burrows, Dalhousie (4^th year, Nassau, Bahamas)

All-Rookie Team
Norm Burry, UNB (1^st year, Grafton, NB)
Jayrell Diggs, Saint Mary’s (1^st year, East Preston, NS)
Nginyu Ngala, Dalhousie (1^st year, Montreal, QC)
Jonas Kesller, UPEI (1^st year, Bergen, Norway)
Flynn Boardman-Raffet, Memorial (1^st year, London, UK)

The 2022 Subway AUS Basketball Championships, presented by Bell Aliant and G Series, will be hosted at Scotiabank Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, March 17-20. Click here for the men’s championship schedule.

For more information on standings and the full event schedule, visit aushoops.ca. Single session tickets are now available through Ticket Atlantic.

All men’s and women’s championship games will be webcast live at AUStv.ca.

The AUS men’s basketball champions will advance to the 2022 U SPORTS men's basketball championships, hosted by the University of Alberta in Edmonton, from April 1-3.