A national championship is in the Briercrest Clippers Men's Basketball team's sights, but first they need to make their way through the ACAC Championship this weekend.

The Clippers have put together a dominant season as they rolled off a 19-1 record during the regular season, which gave them a national number one ranking for the past four weeks.

“We're really excited to be ranked number one going into to it, that's the first time in the school's history in the ACAC that we have been, so we're looking forward to a good weekend,” said head coach Rod Adrian, who ACAC South Coach of the Year on Thursday.

A great record like the one the Clippers are sporting doesn't come easy, but their talented group of players have made it look that way this season.  While the team does have stars such as the nation's leading scorer Gradyn Childerhose, Adrian says their team play is their best attribute, “We play well together.  We have a really good team concept and that's been working for us, so even when we face adversity, we know as a team that we can overcome it and we're doing well as result.”

When it comes to Childerhose, there's no doubt he's been the leader of the team throughout the season.  The fifth-year forward is averaging just slightly over 25 points a game to go along with 10.15 rebounds per game, which ranks eighth in the nation.

“I play with three captains,” stated Adrian.  “Childerhose is leading the nation in a number of categories, Matt Myers is another one of our captain, he's a fifth-year player, who leads the league in assists and plays a number of positions and Kendall Boese is another one of our captains, he's the second leading scorer on the team and is fantastic defensively.”

All three of those players were named to the ACAC All-Conference Teams with Childerhose and Myers getting first-team honours and Boese being named to the second-team.  Childerhose was also named as the ACAC nominee for the All-Canadian Team and CCAA Player of the Year.

The Clippers will open the ACAC Championship against the University of Alberta Augustana, who they haven't played since the second game of the season.  Briercrest won that game handily in Caronport, 103-86.

“We need to make sure that we don't look past them,” said Adrian.  “We're ranked number one and they're ranked eighth going into the tournament and the tenancy in that situation is to look past, so we're trying to focus on just them and what we need to do to be successful.”

They hit the court on Friday night at 6:00pm.  The winner will advance to the semifinals on Saturday at 8:00pm and then the Championship Final will be held on Sunday at 3:30pm.  All the action is happening at Keyano College in Fort McMurray, Alberta.