Maccabi Tel Aviv took care of Hapoel Tel Aviv 101-83 in the Super Cup as Yam Madar starred against his former club earning MVP honors. It was the first chance to see the guard in action for the yellow-and-blue but it was also the debut of a number of other players for Oded Katash’s team.

One of those new recruits for Maccabi is big man Armando Bacot. The 26-year old North Carolina product played for five years at the college before embarking on a professional career that saw him begin in the G-League with the Memphis Hustle and then make his foray into Europe with Fenerbahce last season.

With his first game as a Maccabi player under his belt, Bacot spoke to The Sports Rabbi exclusively following the Super Cup win about the decision to come to Israel, all of the excitement around Yam Madar, his role in the upcoming Euroleague season and his thoughts on the Yad Eliyahu experience.

“It felt amazing,” Bacot began with a big grin from cheek to cheek. “I mean, obviously this is my first experience playing in Maccabi, Israel and it was amazing. The fans were into it, so for me just seeing how excited they were, it made everything easy for me. I felt the energy.”

Having only been in the Holy Land for a few weeks and been a part of the yellow-and-blue for the same amount of time, Bacot shared what he’s enjoyed so far in terms of basketball under Katash, “The first thing that comes to my mind is just teaching. I think the coaches do a great job of explaining things to me. Obviously, last year was my second year as a pro, first year in the Euroleague, so coming into this year, I’m starting to learn more things faster and understand the system which has been great.”

Interestingly enough, Katash spoke about Bacot following the game and talked about his desire to learn, his intelligence level and the upside that he has coming into the team, but with all of that, it will still take time to really succeed at the highest of level in Europe.

“Coach gives us confidence,” Bacot continued. “Just playing for him, he’s a coach who’s always encouraging us along with all of the assistants, so that’s been great to me, but also just telling me to watch a lot of the guys. Somebody like Roman Sorkin, I feel like we’ve got similar skill sets in a sense, so just trying to take things from him, how he makes the game easy on himself, specifically offensively.”

Yam Madar making his first appearance in a Maccabi uniform against Hapoel was of course the biggest highlight of the game and the fact that he won the MVP award made the entire contest into something out of the movies. But for a newcomer like Bacot it was an eye opener to be part of the action.

“Yam’s been great. He’s been embracing it. I’m new, but once I heard the drama, obviously when you talk about it, I was excited to see what they would do if they were booing and stuff. So for me, it was great to kind of see the back and forth from the fans.”

The new EuroLeague season is coming up next week, which will be a big test as the opener will be against ASVEL Villeurbanne. For Bacot, this season he will be an important part of the rotation under Katash after having averaged 10 minutes a game while scoring 2.4 points for Fenerbahce.

“I’m super excited,” Bacot said. “We’ve got a great opportunity, we play a good team in ASVEL and I think we’ve been building, we’ve played great all preseason, we’ve been all learning each other and it’s still just so early. We had a lot of guys playing on the national team, a lot of EuroLeague teams don’t have that many guys as we have playing on the national team, so we’re still learning each other. Daniel Theis is still getting back as is Jimmy Clark, so we’re still learning each other, but I feel good about our chances.”

The Maccabi Tel Aviv core remains from last season with the likes of Sorkin, John Dibartolomeo, Jaylen Hoard, Oshae Brissett, Clark along with a returning Bonzie Colson, TJ Leaf, Gur Lavi and Iffe Lundberg which is a huge advantage for a player like Bacot as it will help him integrate into the squad that much easier.

“It’s been great having John and obviously Bonzie, two guys that can kind of give me a feel, and Roman just trying to learn from him and Daniel. For me it’s a great situation and as long as we’re just playing together and learning through each other, I feel good about everything.“