Rico Alderson does not need stats sheets to measure his performance. He just listens to the Brighton Bears fans.

If, like last Saturday, they are on their feet cheering every point and chanting his name, he must be doing something right.

Now he wants to produce more magic and turn the volume even higher.

The 26-year-old, from Tennessee, will surely never forget last Saturday night against Leicester when he piled up 34 points, 25 rebounds and 11 assists.

All three are fabulous figures when taken in isolation.

Put them together and you get a performance which had the British basketball network buzzing this week.

The BBL went to John Atkinson, their numbers wizard known in the game as Statkinson, for confirmation, then declared Alderson's feat the best in the competition's 15-year history.

Alderson soaked in the cheers of the crowd and, with a hint of a smile, admitted: "There's more to come. It's loud but I would still like it a little louder.

"I'm not doing my job if it isn't really as loud as I want it.

"I just need to step up a little more, get the fans into it a little more, get my team-mates involved in it a little more and hopefully the end result will be the same.

"Stats are stats, but I'm still missing my J (jump shot), I'm not really happy with myself, but I play hard and the end result is we won."

Alderson probably played a better game in the National Cup final than against bottom-of-the-table Leicester.

Saturday's rush of points and rebounds, 16 of them at the offensive end, have, however, left his numbers sky high.

In five games since returning from suspension, he has totalled 91 points, 67 rebounds and 40 assists at 18, 13 and eight per game.

He has picked up just ten fouls in that time and is shooting at 61 per cent from two-point range.

Nothing, though, is ever average when Alderson is involved. In those same five games, he has connected with just two of 21 efforts from outside the arc and missed 11 of his 24 free throws.

He has been catching the eye ever since the time he was named the most flamboyant player in the Sun Belt Conference while playing for the USA Jaguars.

That reference to USA sounds like national selection honours. In fact, it belongs to the University of South Alabama, where he is still fondly remembered.

Matt Smith, a member of the USA basketball staff, said: "He was one of our top players. He earned all-Conference honours and was Conference player of the week three times.

"Even then he was very outgoing and worked well with the media. It doesn't surprise me he is doing well. A lot of our players go to Europe to try and progress. Rico was not really ready here because of his height. He plays bigger than he is but his size is a problem for any leagues over here.

"We were talking about him here the other day. We have got a couple of players now his size and who play like him."

Bears fans will argue there is no one quite like Rico.

Standing 6ft.5ins tall, he has arms that seem to go on forever when he reaches for a loose ball and, at British League level, can play virtually every position on the floor.

He was the star player in an average Leopards team last season and was touted as Bears' key signing when Nick Nurse brought him in on the eve of this season.

Fittingly, the Bears chief went for an unconventional means of announcing his arrival.

No press release, no phone call, just a text message to The Argus with the words "His name was Rico, he wore a diamond," in reference to the Barry Manilow lyrics belted out courtside when Alderson scores.

The new boy on the block had been in scrapes beforehand and his arrival was greeted by majority rather than unanimous approval among Brighton supporters.

There was no doubting his commitment to the cause, though, nor his willingness to get through a lot of hard graft around court, and those qualities were making him a crowd favourite when ejection in two successive games set his season back on its heels.

He freely admitted he could be a frightening proposition, saying: "If I was in the crowd and I was looking at me playing, I would be scared of me too."

Since coming back though, it is opposing teams who have been shaking in their boots while the Rico legend grows.