Israel Hoops Update

One of the main reporters here at "Searching for Doron Sheffer" traveled to Tel Aviv for the finals of the Israeli Cup. (Israel basketball has a 1 and done tournament that is played in addition to the regular season -- it's a ton of fun) In a total total shocker Maccabi Tel Aviv was upset in the semi-finals.

Without having knowledge of Israel basktball it's hard to imagine how big of a deal Maccabi's loss was, for example let's say that the State of Connecticut played a 1 and done tournament -- UCONN would be like Maccabi Tel Aviv. There would be other DI teams (Fairfield, Hartford, Yale, etc... ) in the tournament and maybe even some years a DIII team (Trinity) would sneak in, only to be promptly eliminated in the first round. Well as you can imagine once every decade or two UCONN would have an awful season, some other team would be very streaky and bam a major upset would occur. Well this year happened to be that year.

Just a note -- in general Maccabi is a little better than a DI team and the other top teams would be about DI level. It's would be a lot of fun to see Maccabi play UCLA or Florida or another top DI team.

Maccabi lost in the semis and the finals pitted Jerusalem vs. Bnei HaSharon (the team that beat Maccabi). Well the Jerusalem fans (which i am one of) could smell blood and they trekked to TA for the finals, which they had lost 6 times in the last 10 years all to Maccabi. The game wasn't even close Jerusalem dominated Bnei HaSharon and won by about 18 points. However, the game was fantastic and the fans were incredible (none of this corporate MSG shit). Singing, dancing, jumping the entire game. There were even flares in the stadium and the stadium was shaking with noise. The players got really into it as well and at the end of the game, some of the players climbed into the stands to celebrate with the Jerusalem fans.

Some other highlights:

*** I love finding old American players (each team is allowed 4 foreigners) and in the finals i had appearances from among others, Lee Nailon (former Knick as well as a handful of other NBA teams, that's him on the foul line), Julius Page (a force on the early 2000 Pittsuburg teams) Mario Austin (Miss. State Univeristy -- who was easily the best player on the floor) Ed Cota (UNC -- he's 7th man for Jerusalem), Cookie Belcher (Nebraska)

*** My favorite was Scott Greenblatt (or something like that), some Jewish Kid who was all-ivy at Princeton last year and who, since he is Jewish, can play in the league without the team having to give up one of the foreigner spots on the roster. He's probably 5'9 and can hit a jump shot from any place on the entire floor. He only played in garbage time.


*** On another UCONN note -- former Husky Albert Mouring is playing ball in Israel. Remember him? He was a silky shooter who played on the 99 championship team with RIP and Khalid.

*** One of the coolest things about being in Israel is the songs that the fans sing. One of them is "Jerusalem of Gold" which we know as an Israeli folk song and was sort of made the cities national anthem after the 6 day war.

*** Nothing funnier (and I may have mentioned this before) to see the American's playing basketball in Israel with large large Tattoos of crosses.

*** The president of the Knesset (Israel's Nancy Pelosi) was on hand to present the final trophy and the fans booed her relentlessly. They would have booed anyone that had anything to do with the government -- Israeli's are rather fed-up -- it was quite enjoyable.

Hope that gave you a sense, it was an incredible experience. Loved just being able to go a game especially one that will be remembered for years in Israel. Jerusalem is having a very good year and has a chance to win the Euro Cup that they are in the middle of -- i'm going to keep on going to games.