Resurgent Brighton Bears are making a habit of surprising people. Not least their own coach.

Bears made it three BBL Championship successes in a row and ended Sheffield Sharks' four-win sequence with a superb 71-65 triumph at the Brighton Centre on Saturday.

They led for almost the entire contest, with top scorer and skipper Randy Duck pulling the strings from his point guard role.

Coach Nick Nurse savoured the occasion, then admitted: "We're well ahead of schedule, but with a lot of work still to do.

"If you had told me eight weeks ago when I took this on that we were going to get this kind of team together this quickly and compete with the best teams in the league, I would have told you that might be a little optimistic.

"But we're for real. We've got big time talent. I'm shocked at our talent."

He wasn't the only one. Sheffield arrived looking to stretch their advantage at the top of the northern conference but instead saw their hosts take joint leadership of the south.

They lost that distinction in defeat at London Towers yesterday, but it was still a creditable weekend's work.

Saturday's victory was based on tenacious defence, notably in a hectic finale, when Sharks were threatening to wipe out a deficit which had risen to eight points in the third quarter.

Nurse felt his side failed to snap up enough 50/50 balls beneath their own basket, although Sterling Davis grabbed ten defensive rebounds and Albert White nine.

Bears shot at 50 per cent from two-point range and offensively they are still not at their best.

But they always looked to have just enough in hand to win a pulsating contest, even when Peter Scantlebury's two three-pointers helped close the gap to a single point.

Then Duck took over. Nurse's on-court leader again played the full 40 minutes and could not have chosen a better moment to sink his only three-pointer as he stretched the lead to 62-58 with seven minutes left.

He followed that with a clever foul on Scantlebury as Sharks broke away on a two-on-one, saving two points and giving them a sideline possession from which they failed to score.

White's show-stealing dunk, followed by a two-pointer from Davis on the 24 second buzzer, kept Bears on top while Sharks' shooting let them down when the heat was on.

Duck and Wilbur Johnson then closed the game out from the line.

Johnson had earlier produced his best form of the night in the third quarter, forcing home four straight baskets in trademark style inside the D to help Bears forge ahead.

Nurse said: "I thought we played hard and well but not great to be honest.

"We did enough defensively to rattle them. They missed shots they would normally make but give our guys credit for that. There was a big crowd and a great atmosphere and everyone is pretty happy."

Duck finished the evening with his right ankle packed in ice after slipping while making a lay-up, but said: "It will take more than that to get me out of the game.

"Sheffield are a good team. They execute to near perfection but we made a good enough job of disrupting them.

"We stepped up defensively in the last two minutes. We really got after it and that made the difference.

"We have got to get it into our heads that we are one of the top teams and not give people too much respect until they earn it.

"We have got to have the attitude when we walk into that gym that we demand respect and I think we are getting there."

The noisy crowd who celebrated victory with a chorus of The Great Escape theme, ironically a song first adopted for sporting purposes by Sheffield football fans, will agree with that.

Bears: Duck 20, Davis, 14, Johnson 13, White 12, Jackson 7, Brown 5.

Sheffield: Stewart 19, Phoenix 15, Scantlebury 12, Monaco 10, Reinking 5, McKinney 2, Payne 2.

Meanwhile, Albert White scored 30 points but it was not enough to prevent Bears from going down 91-80 to southern conference leaders London Towers last night.

Bears have only beaten Towers twice in the last 27 meetings and the defeat was keenly felt by coach Nick Nurse who was London's play-caller last season.

Nurse, who had not been impressed by the way his old club had started the season, saw them jump into a 15-2 lead on the way to a 23-12 first quarter advantage.

Towers hit the first basket of the second period before Bears bounced back with a 14-3 run to trail 28-26.

The hosts responded by sinking six unanswered points and they crossed over leading 39-32.

Towers: Myers 26, Kent 21, J. White 19. Bears: A. White 30, Davis 22, Duck 11.