Ralph Blalock helped unbeaten Bears pass their biggest test yet, then said what the rest of the league must be thinking.

Blalock, whose 20 points crowned his best performance to date for Brighton, is convinced he has joined a team of potential champions.

They certainly looked the part in front of an ecstatic Brighton Centre crowd on Saturday as they saw off a stern challenge from last season's clean sweep winners.

This was the first time Bears had beaten a full strength Chester and they did it despite trailing 48-38 at half-time and by 12 points either side of that.

The Jets, with big Pero Cameron holding court and John McCord on fire, impressed in the first 20 minutes but had no answer when Bears responded to coach Nick Nurse's half-time call for greater defensive intensity and more incisive transition play.

Blaclock, a champion two years ago with Leicester, said: "We were a little bit sluggish in the first half. The shots weren't falling, we weren't getting to the loose balls and we were getting out-rebounded but we took care of that in the second half.

"Coach Nurse shouted at us a bit to get us fired up at half-time like a good coach should do and we responded well.

"This is a great win for us. Chester were the dominant team last year winning everything. I think we are proving we can be champions this year but we need to take a game at a time and continue to improve."

Jets won the first two quarters by five points apiece, the first seeing Cameron sink their only three-pointer from 16 attempts and the second featuring an 11-0 run.

In the past, onslaughts like that have killed Bears off. This time, they did not exactly stay with the champions but, when Randy Duck broke away for two points on the buzzer, the deficit was at least retrievable and the crowd were already sensing a comeback.

It soon materialised in the third quarter as Jets were increasingly forced to change their shots or turn the ball over.

There were massive contributions throughout the home side but snapshots in the fans' memories of a great night will include Wilbur Johnson swapping away Chester shots and Blalock somehow coming up with the ball as two opponents bore down on him for a seemingly simple lay-up.

Then there was Rico Alderson, blocking a John Thomas shot, winning the next offensive rebound for Emiko Etete to score, then grabbing the scraps when Thomas's long range reply was off target.

Alderson finished with 14 rebounds and is getting through a lot of valuable dirty work for his side. Duck added ten boards and Bears took that contest 43-32.

Duck's steal and Alderson's dunk cut arrears to four points just 2min.40sec into the third quarter and the moment the fans craved arrived five minutes later as Mike Brown's three-pointer sent his side into a 62-60 lead.

It was 66-63 at the final interval and, though Chester were still only five down with two minutes to play, nerves were steadied as Duck sent Alderson and Blaylock in for lay-ups.

Sterling Davis rounded it off with a dunk but the celebrations had already started by then.

Bears: Blalock 20, S. Davis 17, Duck 17, Alderson 13, Johnson 10, Etete 4, Brown 3.

Chester Jets: McCord 24, Gregory 18, C. Davis 12, Cameron 9, Thomas 8, Cauthorn 4.