The Leicester Riders romped to a 104-77 home win over the Plymouth Raiders to secure their spot in the BBL Cup final to be played at the NIA in Birmingham in the New Year.

The Riders were superior over the two legs as they cruised to a 199-166 win over the two legs.

Despite the win, the reigning Cup holders struggled from the opening tip as Plymouth, trailing 95-89 from the first leg took just two minutes to erase the deficit completely and even found themselves up by nine points at one stage.

Leicester though fought back, led by 32 points from Jay Cousinard as they shook off the first quarter cobwebs to ease to victory.

Donald Robinson paced the Raiders with 16.

The Riders will face either the Newcastle Eagles or the Sheffield Sharks on Friday with the game still fairly even; Sharks hold a slight 82-79 advantage from the first leg.

In the league, the Sharks ended the weekend top of the BBL summit thanks to an 86-79 win at the Plymouth Raiders as they felt the strain from their long trip back to Devon from Leicester the previous night.

Demetrius Jemison’s 31 points helped Sheffield to victory as they came back from a double-digit deficit to win.

The Newcastle Eagles are not too far behind as they also secured two wins over the weekend; first comfortably disposing lonely Surrey United 104-73. Malik Cooke put on a masterclass as he tallied up 34 points to lead all scorers.

The eagles then beat the Durham Wildcats in the north-east derby 90-75. Scott Martin led the winners with 21 points as a strong second half showing finally put away the determined Wildcats who had led 40-39 at the half-time break.

Danny Huffor led Durham with a game-high 22 points.

The Eagles first victims, Surrey United stayed north over the weekend but they remained without a win after going down 96-63 to Cheshire Phoenix.

Reggie Middleton exploded for 31 points while Surrey, who are now 0-13 were led by Ceslovas Kucinskas, who had 21.

There were also wins for London Lions as they beat Birmingham Knights 101-72.

Ben Smith led the Lions with 22 points as keep the BBL new boys from Birmingham winless.

Manchester Giants inflicted more misery on the Glasgow Rocks by beating them 98-87 in the north-west. David Aliu led the Giants with 24 points but despite the win, they stay tenth while the Rocks go to eighth as lose their first game after three straight wins, but lose their seventh game overall.