Brighton Bears' problems at the foot of the Southern Conference increased last night.

Edinburgh Rocks pulled off a comfortable 75-60 win at the Brighton Centre. It was the Bears' 11th defeat in the last dozen games means they are six points adrift, and this will be extended to eight if London Leopards win their clash at Milton Keynes tonight.

Coach Mark Dunning has only experienced victory once since taking over from Charles Luke-Bannerman seven weeks ago and, with 13 matches remaining, a change of fortune is urgently needed to rescue what is turning out to be another hugely disappointing season.

Bears have an early opportunity to exact revenge over Rocks as they make the long journey to the Meadowbank Sports Centre on Sunday, seeking to end a run of eight consecutive away defeats.

Said Dunning: "A team can make adjustments in a short space of time and, all things being equal, I will do that. However, our problems aren't the type rectifiable in three days. When you score only 60 points at this level, that is not going to win you a game.

"Although we still have a long way to go in terms of how I would like to be playing, defensively we did OK. The bottom line was we couldn't put the ball in the hole and it really hurt us."

The door was open for Bears to get back on winning ways against an Edinburgh team that had lost five of their previous six road games, but they could not grasp the opportunity to give their fans a boost in their first home game for a month.

Bears, wooden spoonists last season, went to pieces in the final quarter to dive to another damaging defeat, and they were outscored 22-5 after entering the last period 55-53 ahead.

Brighton shot a dismal 33 percent from the floor against 45 percent by the visitors, and shooting guards Jon Gaines, Lormont Sharpe and Michael Brown were all disappointing.

Ted Berry and John McCord, with 25 and 23 points respectively, were outstanding for Edinburgh as they halted a run of three successive away defeats. Bears had the better of the opening quarter and were 7-6 ahead when Michael New fired a three-pointer to give Rocks the lead for the first time.

Dunning's side then responded with an 11-4 run and, although they ended the period 22-17 in front, Rocks had a 9-1 tier to lead 27-23. Keith Bunyan opened his account with a three-pointer to make it 31-29 to Rocks, but Sharp immediately replied from long range to put Bears back in front.

Giant seven-foot centre Charles Claxton hit two free throws to make it 38-35 to the hosts but Berry nailed a three-pointer to tie the scores at the break. Bears seized the initiative to put together an 11-2 run at the start of the third quarter, but Rocks closed the period 13-6 to trim Bears' advantage to two points at 55-53.

Dunnings' men were not at the races at all in the final quarter and a Berry-inspired 14-4 tier by the Rocks put them on course for victory.

A free throw by Bears's skipper Richard Scantlebury made it 67-60, but Rocks then fired eight points without reply.

Bears' scorers: Trojanowski 14, Sharp 14, Claxton 13, Gaines 6, Scantlebury 6, Brown 3, Hildreth 2, Newman 2.

Rocks' scorers: Berry 25, McCord 23, New 11, MacLean 9, Bunyan 3, Steel 2, Graves 2

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