WORCESTER Wolves have taken an axe to their squad and terminated the contracts of almost all their first-choice players.

American trio Andy Harper, Solomon Sheard and Tom Perkes have all been given the bullet as has Spaniard Sergio Rodriguez.

Lithuanian guard Valdas Urbonavicius has been released but may be re-signed for next season.

The only current players Wolves are contemplating keeping are Matt Collins and James Noel and discussions are on-going with them.

The drastic measure comes in the wake of Wolves' season-long struggle in their inaugural British Basketball League season, which saw them finish bottom of the table.

Chairman Roger Clarke and director of basketball Mick Donovan are now in the process of carrying out a massive overhaul of the club in an off-court review which will include discussing the future of head coach Josh Cooprider.

Donovan said: "Out of 40 competitive games last season, we won five. All of our players have done OK, but we need to be a bit more ambitious in terms of our recruitment.

"We recognise the contribution these players have made, but we need to change the chemistry of the team - we need more experienced players if we want to compete in the BBL."

The new BBL season gets under way at the end of September and Donovan insists there is enough time to build an entire new team to be ready for the first match. He said: "We felt that if we kept getting individual players in as a knee-jerk reaction it would continue not to work.

"We have a good structure at Worcester off the court, but we need to strip things down to the basics and re-build a team for the BBL.

"We are under-taking a massive review, which will include deciding how we are going to finance these changes."