The Israel Women’s National Basketball Team will face Bosnia tomorrow (Wednesday, 15:30) in the first game in the March window of the EuroBasket Women 2027 qualifiers. The team managed to leave the country on Sunday and after a long journey, arrived in Riga, Latvia, where the opening game will take place.

Israel is officially the host of the game against Bosnia and it is the first of three games in the upcoming window. On Saturday night, the team will play away at Luxembourg and next Tuesday they will head back to Latvia where they will “visit” Ireland due to their refuels to host Israel in their country.

After winning all three games in the previous window, another victory over Bosnia, combined with a Luxembourg win over Ireland would guarantee Israel a place in the Second Group Stage, which will begin in November. Even in the event of a loss, Israel could still secure qualification, as a win in one of the following two games should be enough to reach the next stage.

After arriving in Latvia on Sunday, the blue-and-white have been training in preparation for the upcoming trio of games in what has been a positive atmosphere within the team, with lots of energy, as the players are eager to take the court and represent the country, especially during this period of time.

In the November window, Israel defeated Bosnia 98–91 after an excellent fourth quarter that Israel won 27–17. Alyssa Baron stood out with 27 points, Abby Meyers added 21 and Daniel Raber was three assists short of a triple-double. On the other side, Bosnia hit 12 three-pointers at a 47% clip, so Israel will need to focus on defending the perimeter shooting.

Bosnia, incidentally, is currently ranked last in the group without a win so far.

Israel ranks third in scoring in the qualifiers with 89.3 points per game, second in steals with 15 per game, and fifth in assists with 24.3 per game. However, in 3-point shooting the team is only 16th, averaging 30.7%.

Head coach Shira Haelion spoke about the upcoming games, “Our feelings are quite mixed, our hearts are back home with our families. It’s not a simple situation. We represent the country and do what we love which is to play basketball. We’ll try to do our best and come into the game against Bosnia ready to win. It won’t be an easy game; in the previous meeting we allowed 91 points and were behind for most of it. We’ll need to stay focused throughout the entire game.”

Captain Eden Rotberg added, “We’re really happy to be here and represent our country. We’re thinking about everyone back home and the families and we want to get a win to give people in Israel a reason to smile. Bosnia is a good team and our previous game against them was close the whole way. We learned from our mistakes and I hope we’ll apply those lessons on the court and achieve the victory.”