Basketball: Flournoy fulminates at Sullivan's complaints

The defending champions, Newcastle Eagles, put their poor start to the British Basketball League season behind them with a double-win weekend.

The Eagles trounced Worcester Wolves 87-62 on Friday night and then snatched an overtime win 85-78 at Leicester Riders on Saturday in a perfect response to claims by the Great Britain international Andrew Sullivan that his former club were struggling.

Sullivan was the BBL's Most Valuable Player last season. He is now with the Spanish giants Joventot Badalona. The Eagles coach, Fab Flournoy, said: "Considering the money he is earning in the second-best basketball league in the world, I am surprised he is so concerned at what is going in the BBL."

Flournoy, who saw his returning American Jeremy Hyatt lead his scorers with 24 points at Leicester, was equally dismissive of Sullivan's gripe that he was not offered a contract to stay on Tyneside. "Basically he wanted what turned out to be the whole team budget and more," he said. "What did he want me to do? Use up our entire budget and not sign anybody else?"