Nick Nurse is ready to make one more signing as he attempts to convert Brighton Bears' domestic success into progress on the European scene.

Bears beat Leicester 99-78 at the Brighton Centre last night to score a fourth win in five BBL games.

They only really pulled away in the fourth quarter, which was when English international point guard Steve Hansell got into his stride on his debut for the club.

Hansell has been signed on a week to week basis with a view to the FIBA Europe League campaign, which gets underway at home to Mons next Tuesday.

Coach Nurse faces a tricky balancing act with his squad having been told he can only use two of his three work permit overseas players, Ryan Huntley, Steve Lepore and last night's top scorer Andrew Alleyne.

The Cotonou Agreement, under which Alleyne, who comes from Barbados, played as an honorary European last season no longer applies, leaving Nurse a decision to make ahead of Friday's registration deadline.

He said: "I will try and make one more addition, an English big guy. We are still looking at Ajou (Deng) who has applied for his passport, and we've got Hansell on board.

"Then we've got to make a decision on our team by Friday and right now it will be Steve who drops out."

Nurse was encouraged to see Hansell take charge of the latter stages against a dogged Leicester outfit.

The Bears coach added: "It was a great night for him as far as getting game conditioning.

"Leicester played triangle and two defence, which means three big men around the basket and the little guys further out, and we never really got in a rhythm. It was clever work by them."

In fact the lowly Riders were only 68-62 adrift early in the fourth quarter before Bears blew the game open with a 10-3 run, featuring nice assists by Hansell for Duncan Ogilvie and Deng to score on fast breaks.

There were some great moments late on for Worthing youngster Pat Bates who produced two blocks and sank a couple of free throws.

Deng, given a start with Lepore suffering from a knee injury, had nine first-quarter points but once again the cornerstone of the success was Alleyne. He had just two points in the first 13 minutes but had ten points in each of the second and third quarters with strong work inside and confident finishing.

Riders had their own impressive big man in Michael New, who helped them into a short lived lead at 21-20, then parity at 23-23.

Yorick Williams, however, replied with one of his four three pointers to spark a 31-23 run and Bears were always in front from that point.