No coach. No luck. No win. Edinburgh Rocks are at a low ebb at present
following the as yet unexplained sacking of coach Greg Lockridge on Friday and their performance on Saturday night against Leicester Riders will do little to lift the cloud which presently lingers over the BBL outfit. 

A 99-113 defeat at the hands of their guests at Meadowbank leaves the Scots rooted  to the foot of the Northern Conference, an unenviable position for whoever inherits Lockridge's chalice.

"We really needed this win," said Riders coach Billy Mims. "I think we're the best 3-7 team in Britain. 

His team were in uncompromising form, their acquisition of Malcolm Leak last week paying rapid dividends as the two-time All Star, who had been playing in Cyprus, hit 26 points against the Rocks who failed to pick up more than a handful of second chance points during a match in which both sides showed a score-first mentality.

"If you'd said to us before the game that we'd score 99 points, I'd have
taken it," admitted Iain Maclean who had been put in temporary charge of
team affairs. "Neither side played defence for any length of time and they
were scoring at will at times. That's something we'll need to address  in
mid-week.

With Rock Winston having his worst performance since his recent arrival in Edinburgh, the hosts struggled to contain their opponents who were ahead 30-23 at the close of the first period . Jo-Jo Chambers led all scorers with 27 points but he, like his colleagues, often concentrated on individual highlights rather than what was best for their team.

Down 61-51 at half-time, Edinburgh allowed the Riders to increase their
advantage, first to 17 in the third quarter and then by as much as 20 in the fourth. New Yorker Billy Singleton, a mammoth among the giants of
basketball, pulled down a succession of rebounds leaving the Rocks unable to capitalise upon missed shots at either end.

Leicester were without Purnell Perry, their top scorer.

"(He) sat out for discliplinary reasons," explained Mims, whose side scarcely missed their power forward as they continued to stretch the fatigued hosts who had barely caught a breath after their loss at Milton Keynes 24 hours before.

With the introduction of Marcus Hernandez, the league's smallest player at just 5'5" tall, the home bench signalled the game was up with four minutes left, leaving the club's owners and Maclean pondering what to do next.

"It wasn't a good performance at all," Maclean conceded. "We had tried to simplify the offense from what we'd been doing before but some of the guys tried to take too much responsibility."