The 2016-17 Canada West men's basketball all-star and all-rookie teams were announced by the conference on Monday, February 27. The University of Manitoba Bisons had two student-athletes honoured for his efforts.
Bison men's basketball guard Justus Alleyn (pronounced: Al-lean) has been selected as 2016-17 Canada West Second Team All-Star. In addition, James Wagner was named to the 2016-17 Canada West All-Rookie Team. This is the second consecutive season that a Bison has been named a conference All-Star (Keith Omoerah – Second Team) and fifth time a Bison was conference all-star in last 11 seasons (2012-13: Stephan Walton – Second Team; '06-07 and '07-08: Isaac Ansah – Second Team).
Alleyn, 21, played in his fourth season with the Bisons and earned his first conference all-star selection at Manitoba. Alleyn had his best season statistically as he was tied for ninth in conference scoring at 17.4 points per game. The Winnipeg native also was in tenth spot in conference 3-point percentage at 42.5 and tied for 16th in Canada West in minutes played per game at 30.6 while starting and playing in 19 of 20 conference games. He was also fourth on team with 3.6 rebounds per game, third at 2.1 assists per game and third with 1.3 steals per game, The 6'2", 200 lbs. guard was co-captain of Manitoba for the first time with the Bisons and led the team to the fifth seed in 2016-17 conference season with a 12-8 record.
Wagner, 18, had a breakout season in his first year with the Herd. The Winnipeg native was third in Canada West and led the team at 56.8% field goal percentage and was fifth in team scoring with 7.5 points per game while playing in all 20 conference games in 2016-17. In a veteran laden squad, Wagner averaged 17.9 minutes per game (sixth on team) and the 6'7", 200 lbs. forward grabbed 3.6 rebounds (fourth on team) and tied for second with 0.4 blocks per game.
Bison head coach Kirby Schepp said, "Justus has steadily improved his game each year in Canada West and is now one of the top two-way guards in the country. This year he has become a much more consistent performer which was a huge boost to our team. It is great to see him get the recognition he deserves. It is so rare for a player to come right out of high school into U SPORTS competition and make an impact right away. As we expected, James has a great addition for us this season. He matured as the year went on and is now playing like a veteran. James has a bright future ahead of him and we are excited to see how good he can be."
Bison Notes: Manitoba will play in the Canada West Final 4 for the second consecutive season. The Bisons will play one of the two conference semi-final game against first seed and host Calgary on Friday, March 3 at 9 p./m. CT and can be seen live on canadawest.tv website. With a win, the Herd would advance to the nationals.
