1) Israel Basketball Winner Cup Preseason Tournament
Hapoel Beer Sheva continued their fine form since joining the Basketball Super League by defeating last year’s finalist Hapoel Holon 77-73. In a hard fought battle, Rami Hadar’s southern squad played superb ball led by Semaj Christon (15p), Jakim Donaldson (12p/15r), Taylor Braun (12p) and Travis Warech (11p). Amit Simhon led the way for Dan Shamir’s Holon with 13 points while DeQuan Jones added 12 points in the loss.

Following the game, Hadar complimented Warech’s play, “Travis is the biggest surprise that I have on the team. I saw him play last season and I really really liked him. He gives us some great parameters during the game; he’s an exceptional rebounder, his defense is good, he can hit the open shot and he’s a terrific all around guy with personality and high qualities. It’s a real pleasure to coach him. He’s a great player.”

Maccabi Ashdod beat Hapoel Gilboa/Galil 65-62 in Winner Cup Quarter Final action in Rishon Le’Zion. Landon Milbourne led Ashdod with 16 points but it was Ido Flaisher with 12 points and 10 rebounds who stole the show for Brad Greenberg’s team. Flaisher who played for two seasons at Hawaii in the NCAA returned to Israel and couldn’t have made a bigger impact in his first “official” game in the preseason tournament. James Kelly (13p/9r) and Ian Miller 13p led Gilboa/Galil in the defeat.

Brad Greenberg spoke about Ido Flaisher’s performance, “He was physical and goes after rebounds and gets into the air quick for them. He also finished a lot of shots today. I don’t know if we can expect that he can finish akurnd the rim like he did today but he works hard and wants to be a player an learn. I like kids like that who come into the gym and looks to get better. He’s a pretty serious kid.”

Quick 3-Pointers
1) Hapoel Beer Sheva looks nowhere like a team that was just promoted to the big leagues. Rami Hadar’s club looks like they belong and ready to go angst the big boys. It’s certainky early but watching the right ball movement was an absolute delight. With quality players in Semaj Christon, Taylor Braun, Jordan Swing, Jakim Donaldson, Travis Warech and Amit Gershon to name a few, the skies the limit.

2) Holon shot a pitiful 3/28 from beyond the arc. When asked in the post game press conference, Hadar said that it was partly Beer Sheva’s defense but also just a bad day at the office for the Holon shooters. Some of the numbers were frightening including Khalif Wyatt going 1/10 and Shlomi Harush 2/10. Shamir needs to get his guys on track from long distance. When the last time any team went 3/28 from 3?

3) Ido Flaisher was fantastic. After winning the Under-20 European Championship this past summer, Flaisher certainly wanted to make sure the winning feeling wouldn’t rub off too fast. The former Hawaii forward didn’t look out of place against Hapoel Gilboa/Galil and shot a perfect 100% from the field going 6/6 while adding 10 rebounds. However, he’s still got to work on his free throws as he went an abysmal 0/5 from the charity stripe. But tonight was a good start to his professional career.

2) VAR will be introduced in Israel the Premier League’s Championship Playoffs which begin in March 2019. The Video Assistant Referee was introduced at this past summer’s World Cup and is also being used in a number of leagues around Europe including Italy’s Serie A, Spain’s La Liga and the German Bundesliga. The VAR technology will aid the referees in determining goals, penalties and red cards in order for the games to be as fairly officiated as possible without human error.

3) Check out all of the recaps and highlights from this past Israel Premier League Matchday 4! Beitar defeats Sakhnin, Maccabi Tel Aviv takes down Netanya, Beer Sheva draws against Bnei Yehuda and more.
Preseason Basketball

Maccabi Tel Aviv fell to Fenerbahce 94-92 in overtime. Alex Tyus (19p/14r) and Tarik Black (16p/11r) led the way for the Yellow & Blue with double doubles while Jeremy Pargo dropped 21 points but coughed up the ball 7 times in 34 minutes of play. Kostas Sloukas dropped 22 points for Fener in the victory.