Nick Nurse today insisted his team's BBL Trophy hopes were still alive, despite more home disappointment.

Genesis Brighton Bears blew their chance of topping their qualification group with this third successive home defeat at the Brighton Centre last night.

Guildford will win the group providing they beat either London United or Worthing Thunder.

Bears' hopes of making the last four rest on beating Plymouth in their final fixture and finishing with a better record than the runners-up in the other two groups.

The draw was made on a geographical basis and there is no doubting the basketball map has been kind to Bears.

Qualification is still a definite possibility if they beat the BBL's bottom club at the Brighton Centre on December 3.

But they have made it tougher for themselves after a performance which summed up their season to date: Loads of effort but ultimately not enough quality, especially offensively.

Coach Nurse said: "It's not over for us yet. We've got to have a chance of going through as a runner-up.

"We recovered from some bad situations but it felt like we were trying to sprint uphill the whole time."

Bears dug themselves two big holes and only got out of one. But their attempts to come back, and the crowd's reaction, at last served as a reminder that going to a game can actually be fun.

And that was not the case against Sheffield last Saturday. Bears got the fans on their side by roaring back from 63-50 down late in the third quarter to trail 65-63 at the end of the period.

They had their chances to draw level.

Instead, Heat opened a 77-65 advantage when Marlin Capers fired his sixth and last three-pointer from eight attempts inside the last eight minutes.

A Steve Parillon three and Andrew Alleyne free throw got Bears back to 82-78 with 2:53 on the clock but, despite an awful lot of effort and an effective full court press, they got no closer.

Alleyne's approach typified the overall spirit. He will score more points and get more rebounds in games but his sheer effort was summed up as he got back to block four shots and draw a charge off Chad McKnight.

Bears shot well from threepoint range, making ten of 21 attempts with Terrance McGee going five-for-nine.

McGee hit 28 points and had eight assists but also racked up nine of his team's 26 turnovers. Heat gave the ball up 19 times.

It was that sort of game. Fast and furious but not too high on quality. In fact, Bears could have done with seeing some more turnovers late on as they increased the heat.

Nurse said: "We wanted to make them nervous at the end but we never quite made them nervous enough."

Alleyne felt some of the effort was mis-directed. He said: "There was a lot of hard work but we were still giving up a lot of inside play and three-point shots.

"We had our fate in our own hands. Now we've got to beat Plymouth."

And hope for a favour from elsewhere, of course.