Basketball: Rocks to rally against Border raiders

The Rocks, still top despite last week's defeat to Sheffield Sharks, have one defeat in seven while the Raiders have one win in 10, but at least the Devonian club earned some sympathy from Rocks coach Steve Swanson ahead of the longest road trip in British basketball. SWanson said: "Their problem is they've not been able to get everyone playing well at the same time."

That was also the Rocks' problem in their defeat against Sheffield, but Swanson knew their unbeaten six-game run had to end eventually. "A lot depends on your schedule. You're going to get beat at some point. During the season, two or three teams will have longer winning runs than six games. Our run put us where we are because it was from the start."

Yorick Williams is unlikely to realise his hope of obtaining funding from England Basketball so that he can continue playing in the BBL until England play in the Commonwealth Games in March, instead of chasing a more lucrative contract on the continent.

EB's performance director Radmilla Turner confirmed the sport's governing body would not be requesting more funds from Sport England. "The deadline for applications was May. They wouldn't even look at it now," Turner said.

"Yorick has already received a lot of support from us. We spent £2,000 to help him recover from injury last season without using him for one game. Even though he was injured playing for his club rather than us, that was not a problem. We like to look after players and we have looked after Yorick."