Bears fans flocked to see their team with the silverware and ended up paying tribute to the man with the golden grin.

Rico Alderson, the Bears showman who wears gold on his teeth, cornrows in his hair and his heart on his sleeve, completed a spectacular triple-double as his team served up a night to remember at the Triangle.

Alderson finished with 34 points, 25 rebounds and 11 assists, the first Brighton player to reach double figures in three different facets of the game since Randy Duck away to Leopards last season.

The last player to perform such a feat in a Bears home match was Alderson himself, playing for Leopards at the Brighton Centre two seasons ago.

Bears also had a double-double from Ralph Blalock, who piled up 13 defensive rebounds, and 20-point hauls by Sterling Davis and Wilbur Johnson but it was Rico's name a packed house was chanting as Bears coasted home.

Coach Nick Nurse enjoyed it as much as anyone. He said: "That was awesome from Rico. I haven't witnessed too many performances like that in my whole career. He's entertaining and when he's out there we are pretty good. It seems so easy. He kind of lopes in there and dumps the ball in and that's really valuable."

Nurse was thought to be taking a risk when he signed Alderson in the autumn. The 6ft.5ins showman from Tennessee is a livewire on court and that can sometimes be channelled in the wrong direction.

He was ejected from two successive games earlier this season but has returned from the subsequent three-match suspension looking better than ever.

In five appearances since coming back from the ban, he has averaged 18 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists, shared in five wins and picked up his first major honour in British basketball.

Courtside commentator Chris Leggatt kept the crowd up to date with his progress on Saturday but it seemed that tenth assist might just get away until young Bud Johnston came on with 1min 53secs to go.

That was when the fun really started. First Johnston connected with a three-pointer off an Alderson pass to take his colleague into double figures in the assists column.

Within a minute Johnston had sunk two more threes and, when Bears came down the court one last time, Alderson provided the crowning glory with an alley-oop dunk from Blalock's pass.

All that was left was to bring on the National Cup, won a week earlier, and show it off to the euphoric fans.

Nurse added: "As a game I thought it was okay but it was a great occasion.

"The big thing for me was the crowd. That came out of nowhere. It wasn't down to marketing. That was people showing up because they appreciate us and saw us on TV."

Fans who packed the balcony and sat four deep behind the baskets were always going to see a win, though rock bottom Leicester kept the margin in single figures for quite a while.

"Leicester, give us a game," was the chorus from fans at one stage but Billy Mims's men, notably Kenya Capers, were not disgraced.

Bears led 23-18 at the quarter, 42-34 at the half and 73-56 going into the final period.

Johnson hit their first five points in a 7-0 opening run and Blalock later showed a touch of mastery with a steal at his own basket, length-of-the-court run and deft finish when being fouled for a three-point play.

Ironically, Alderson's supershow opened with two misses from the free throw line after just 11 seconds of play. He got off the mark after four minutes, led the fast break from which Blalock sank a three and had scored six points by the first break.

Ten more points followed in the second quarter, including a steal and dunk and a three-point play after grabbing the scraps from a Davis miss.

Leicester got back to 49-44 in the third period but Bears settled the contest with an 11-2 run with Alderson having 12 points in the quarter and sending in the lobbed pass for Davis to stretch the lead to 17.

From then it was all about assists and he went to nine by again finding Davis with 5mins.36sec to play.

Alderson attempted to play it down afterwards, saying: "Stats don't mean anything. I'm happy with the win. It could have been any of us but tonight it happened it to be me."

On a golden night for the Bears, it could hardly have been anyone else.