Ryan Huntley has been told his British League season is over, subject to his replacement receiving a work permit.

Huntley broke a bone in his foot helping Brighton Bears beat Plymouth at the weekend and has been ruled out for at least four weeks.

Bears have brought in Oklahoma State graduate Cheyne Gadson, though he is not expected to secure a work permit in time for tonight's game at Sheffield Sharks (7.30pm).

When he makes his debut Gadson will join Steve Lepore and Andrew Alleyne as the three overseas players requiring work permits each club is allowed under league rules.

With the transfer deadline having passed, a league spokesman today confirmed there were "no circumstances" under which Huntley could be re-registered once Gadson had received his work permit.

Each team is also allowed one overseas player who does not need a work permit.

Ajou Deng, Sudanese but with refugee status, continues to fill that spot for Bears while his application for a British passport is processed.

Tony Holley is Bears' one permitted naturalised American while Yorick Williams, Ronnie Baker, Joe Perera, Ciaran Burns and Duncan Ogilvie, who remains licenced on the off-chance he recovers from his knee injury, are British passport-holders.

Bears coach Nick Nurse, who suffered an identical injury during his playing days, is concerned Huntley's projected four-week recovery period will prove to be longer than that.

Brighton face Newcastle in the final of the BBL Trophy on March 6, five weeks and one day after Huntley was injured.

They will also still have half their league programme to complete after tonight's trip to Ponds Forge, where victory would be doubly significant.

As well as taking them above Sheffield, a Bears win would also give them an unassailable 3-0 lead over Sharks in the head-to-head series, which serves as the tie-breaker between teams who finish the season level on points.

Nurse knows his men must play better than in recent games but is convinced they will face a different challenge to those posed by Plymouth and Birmingham last week.

He said: "When the game gets bigger our guys will raise their game a little bit.

"The lower teams have nothing to lose. They come in free and easy, they start hoisting shots and they go in. They get a few breaks and they start feeding on that.

"Sheffield won't be coming down the floor casting up everything in sight and hoping it goes in.

"Their shots are going to be tight. They know they will have to make right decisions or they will get beat."

Sheffield are the top three-point shooting team in the league while Richard Windle recently took over leadership of the individual percentages from Bears' Yorick Williams.

Windle shoots at 46.9 per cent from outside the arc but only averages about one success per game.

Iain McKinney averages 2.5 three-point successes per game and shoots at 43 per cent.