HALIFAX — Carleton Ravens guard Aiden Warnholtz was named a first team All-Canadian at the U Sports men’s basketball awards ceremony Thursday evening at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax, capping off an impressive season as Carleton’s lead point scorer and ball handler.
This is the first national award of Warnholtz’s university career. He won the Ontario University Athletics (OUA)’s Ken Shields Award for Community Service and was named an OUA first team all-star last week.
Warnholtz was joined as a first team All-Canadian by UPEI’s Elijah Miller, the University of Windsor’s Thomas Kennedy, Queen’s University’s Cole Syllas and the University of Victoria’s Diego Maffia.
Warnholtz led the Ravens in points and assists in the regular season, more than doubling the total of Carleton’s next closest assist leader, Wazir Latiff. He played in all 22 games and only once played fewer than 25 minutes.
This season was his fourth with the Ravens. From Kanata, Ont., Warnholtz attended A.Y. Jackson Secondary and Canada Topflight Academy before committing to Carleton ahead of the 2018-19 season.
He made an immediate impact, averaging nearly 11 minutes per game in his rookie season and winning a national championship. Warnholtz played a similar role in the 2019-20 season, when the Ravens won again.
After the cancelled 2020-21 campaign, Warnholtz stepped up as a starter in 2021-22 before emerging as a star this season.
This year, he recorded the most assists for a Raven since at least 2004-05, and played the most minutes of any Raven in that span, too.
Kennedy was named U Sports men’s basketball Player of the Year after finishing top ten in the country in most major statistical categories.
Queen’s Gaels head coach Steph Barrie won Coach of the Year after guiding the team to its best regular season record in more than 50 years. Carleton beat the Gaels 93-86 in the OUA semifinals, but they reached nationals as the at-large berth and will face the St. Francis Xavier X-Men at 5 p.m. ET.
David Muenkat of the X-Men won Defensive Player of the Year after leading Atlantic University Sport (AUS) in defensive rebounds and being named AUS championship MVP.
The University of Manitoba’s Simon Hildebrandt won Rookie of the Year while the Ken Shields Award for Community Service went to Adam Paige from the University of Alberta.
The national championship will begin Friday at 11 a.m. ET when the Ravens play the UQAM Citadins in the quarterfinals.
Featured image by L. Manuel Baechlin.
