Who said the end of the season means a break for basketball people.

Two days after the play-offs was a whirlwind of meetings, phone calls and sorting out loose ends.

I know you will all have your ideas on who will be back next season and how we can improve the Brighton Bears team. I know you also all have your favourite players you want to see in the dark blue.

You want to see King Ralph back, right? I'm working on it. You want Rico? I'm working on that too. Randy? Relax, he's guaranteed. Sterling? A bit tougher but not impossible. And the list goes in.

I think you will see a change of approach from me when next season finally rolls around.

As you know, I do a lot of work as team owner, getting involved in all sorts of schemes to do with the Bears and basketball in this area.

Next season I really need to spend more time with the team. True, I'm generally there on training mornings but I genuinely believe more coaching and training of them would help.

It's nothing too radical. We have a good set-up here. I just want to do an even better job.

Maybe it will mean employing more staff for off-court duties. Perhaps that is a team I need to look at strengthening as well.

Let's just say I'm looking long term at the whole Brighton Bears organisation.

It was tough to sit in that press conference after the play-off final as runner-up but take nothing away from Scottish Rocks and their coach Kevin Wall. Kevin's a good guy. We both coached the same crazy team in Belgium but he lasted a whole lot longer than I did.

I'm pretty close with the Scottish Rocks owners and when Kevin wanted the job I phoned them up and put in a good word for him.

Hopefully that helped him because you could see, with the teams and budgets he had before, like at Derby, he was coaching well.

He gets his teams organised and playing defence, which I admire. Defence wins championships and his guys were certainly playing some D against us on Sunday.

Going into Birmingham, I genuinely felt any of the four teams had a chance of lifting the prize. I mean a genuine good chance, not just a "hey, anything can happen" sort of chance.

I liked our chances because we were healthy, Sheffield were favourites and Newcastle had won seven straight.

The Rocks came through as the sixth placed team. That can happen in our play-offs and it's a testament to the strength and quality running through our league.

There is so much ability knocking around the BBL and this proves it.

I talked to a general manager from Germany on Saturday night and he said: "Man, there's some unbelievable talent out there." That sort of thing gets lost because people are moaning about everything you could think of.

That won't happen among Bears fans this summer, I promise you. We will have news to keep you buzzing and get you eagerly anticipating next season.

Thanks for your support in 2002/03. You are the best fans in the league and you showed it again at the NIA.

It has been a fun year. I intend making next year even better.