Brighton Bears' chief Nick Nurse has called for a shake-up in British basketball.

Nurse takes his side to Coventry this weekend for a BBL Trophy quarter-final with his former club London Towers.

Bears are currently turning up the heat on Towers in the southern conference and eyeing a possible Trophy semi-final with Chester, who lead the northern section.

But Nurse believes the time has come to forget the north/south divide and revert to a single 12-team division.

He also wants the play-off system altered to give more of an advantage to sides finishing higher up the league.

Nurse said: "Club owners are talking about making the change and I would support it.

"I like the conference system and I don't mind that it means us playing other southern teams four times.

"But what I don't like is that teams like Leicester and Newcastle are sitting there with losing records but will still make the play-offs.

"At the moment the six teams in the south would probably all make the top eight if we had just one division and that is argument enough for me."

Nurse's role as general manager at Brighton means he participates in club owners' meetings and he revealed: "There is a lot of pushing to go back to one league.

Nurse believes teams wanting to play in next season's North European League will have to prove they are among the BBL's top three.