Basketball: Dorsey back to compound Towers' woes

The wear and tear of London Tower's European Cup campaign is eating into their domestic title defence, and they will filed a weakened side for tomorrow night's live satellite broadcast of their Budweiser League game against Birmingham Bullets.

Alan Cunningham missed Tuesday's 70-61 European defeat against Ankara in Turkey with a calf injury and is unlikely to line up for the champions against Bullets, who beat London 69-62 last month in the league.

Karl Brown hobbled through the European game with an ankle injury, but he will play despite being withdrawn from the England team for Wednesday's European Championship trip to Estonia.

Adding to London's problems is the return to Birmingham of the 6ft 6in American Tony Dorsey, the Most Valuable Player in last season's Wembley play-off final when Bullets defeated London to prevent their clean sweep of the domestic titles.

Dorsey, the League's Player of the Year, began the season with Steiner Bayreuth in the German league, but became homesick for Birmingham.

The Bullets coach, Nick Nurse, said: "Tony married recently and his wife is from Birmingham and remained here. That was a factor more than anything else."

Dorsey was the league's second highest scorer last season, with 28 points per game and he also averaged nine rebounds. He replaces the Western Samoan Frankie Edwards, who survived only three games before being ditched.

Brown's injury is a setback following his quick recovery from a broken ankle during the summer. The London coach, Kevin Cadle, said: "Karl has been favouring the ankle when he lands from a jump and now he's strained the other ankle."

Five London Leopards and three Sheffield Sharks players fouled out of the League game at London Arena on Thursday night, which the leaders, Sheffield, won 104-101 over the second-placed Leopards.