The Israel National Team fell to Germany 89-69 in the opening game of the World Cup qualifiers in Ulm. The European and World Champions tightened up their defense after a close first quarter and held the blue-and-white to just 9 points in the second quarter as the hosts took a 19-point, 50-31 advantage into halftime.

In the third quarter the Germans opened the gap up to almost 30 points as Israel tried to cut it down to a respectable final score by the end of the game. Germany completely dominated the boards, out rebounding Israel 42-34 while the hosts scored 24 second-chance points compared to only 5 by Israel. On Monday, Israel will host Croatia in Riga after the Croatians had no trouble against Cyprus 100-60 in their qualifier.

Israel opened the game up with points in the paint from Roman Sorkin, but the Germans responded with a 3-pointer from David Kramer as well as points in the paint to give the hosts a 13–7 lead after five minutes. Israel came back with triples by Khadeen Carrington and Bar Timor while Gur Lavi also went from long distance, but Germany’s offensive rebounding gave them a 26–22 lead after ten minutes of play.

Germany’s offensive rebounding continued to produce points and widened the gap to 50–31 with a buzzer-beater 3-pointer to end the first half. At the start of the third quarter the lead grew to 59–31, but Bar Timor, Lavi and Roi Huber trimmed the advantage down to 69–53 after thirty minutes of action. However, the Germans pushed the lead back up to 20 points as they secured the win.

Sorkin scored 18 points, Carrington added 17 points and Timor scored 10 points in the loss as Oscar da Silva scored 19 points, Kramer put in 13 points and Joshua Obiese scored 11 points in the win.

The Israel National Team Head Coach Ariel Beit-Halachmi summed up the game, “This is one of the toughest games in our group, especially here on the road. We encountered a different level of physicality and intensity and that’s where we fell short. In the end, I think we were also less effective on offense, we need to learn from this.”

“It’s the first game and I’m sure in the second one we’ll look different; we’ll also have more practices together as a national team. We committed 19 turnovers and allowed them far too many offensive rebounds. On Monday we’ll need to start everything from scratch as it’s a game we can win. We had some good minutes in the third quarter, but we fell apart in the second period.”

Gur Lavi added, “They were much more aggressive and intense and They’re the world and European champions. As a team we only got together a short time ago and we have to work very hard ahead of the next game against Croatia. At the same time, these aren’t excuses, it’s something everyone has to deal with.”