Nick Nurse wants to bring European basketball to Sussex after signing as coach of Brighton Bears.

The high profile appointment ends almost five months of waiting for a successor to the sacked Mark Dunning and an anxious 12-day period in which Bears were waiting for their new man to secure his work permit.

Nurse has turned down an offer to join the coaching staff at Real Madrid and will instead supervise pre-season training at Brighton, which has been put back by a week to Monday, September 10.

The Iowa-born play-caller took Birmingham Bullets and Manchester Giants to BBL Championship success and last season guided the London Towers to the play-off stages of the North European Basketball League.

Nurse admitted he was anxious to take Bears on to the European stage.

He said: "I can see huge potential for the Brighton Bears franchise and that's why I am here "The facilities and the fans are great and the club is ready to be successful again. I want to bring in exciting players who know how to win, then we can make some progress."

Nurse added: "The bigger picture includes taking the Bears into European competition within the next one or two seasons."

The appointment is being hailed throughout British basketball as a major coup for Romek Kriwald, Bears' owner.

Kriwald declared: "We now have a winning coach who can give us a new brand of attacking basketball. Things should start to liven up around here."

Nurse is expected to waste little time in putting together his new squad.

His Leicester counterpart Billy Mims has revealed he expects hotshot point guard Larry Johnson to move south.

Last season's player-of-the-year Wilbur Johnson last night hailed Nurse's arrival as a massive boost.

He said: "I know all about Nick from when I was at Sheffield and we had a great rivalry with his Manchester team.

"The southern conference is looking strong with four or five really good teams.

"I'm just looking forward to getting started and surprising a lot of people who thought Brighton were going to be a laughing stock."