Consistency is the name of the game and that’s why Hapoel Tel Aviv is in the playoffs and Maccabi Tel Aviv is not. It’s actually very simple at the end of the day as to how Dimitrios Itoudis was able to guide the Reds to what was their promised land as well as their goal from day one of their first season in the Euroleague.

As EuroCup champs, Hapoel was given a one year temporary license, so to speak to the Euroleague and anything after that was not guaranteed unless the Reds advanced to the playoffs which is what they ultimately did securing their place for the 26/27 season in the continent’s premier competition.

The formula perhaps seemed to be simple but the actual implementation was certainly not. However, the 38-game season is a marathon and not a sprint and if you’re going to be consistent enough throughout the campaign, with a game plan in hand then the goal should be hit and that was the case for Ofer Yannay’s club.

There was a game plan in place from day one but that day one wasn’t the start of the season but way, way before that when Itoudis made his grand entrance back in the fall of 2024. From that point on he began to put the wheels in motion as to how the club was going to reach their goals and succeed where many others had not. It was building a team that could compete with the big boys of the Euroleague and not the EuroCup. That meant some players would be held over from the his first season but better ones needed to be brought in during the offseason to ensure that the trip to the Euroleague would not be just a one and done.

From there it was being able to manage a squad that at times seemed to be unwieldy with so many players, almost 20 in fact, along with the constant questioning as to the composition of the 12 man team that would play game in and game out for 38 contests. The questioning was primarily around the Israelis and why their minutes were paltry compared to the rest of the squad, even if they were registered to play. How many minutes will the Israelis always seemed to be at the tips of everyone’s tongues and most recently that amount has been slim to none.

In fact, Itoudis cut down his rotation the past few weeks since Hapoel moved their operations back to Sofia due to the outbreak of the war in order to do what he was brought in to do which was ensure another year playing the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Panathinaikos and Olympiacos.

The reds started the season off strong with a 8-2 record in their first ten games and that set the tone for what was a very successful regular season which still has one more game to go. The second of ten games saw Hapoel go 6-4 while the third group of ten was 5-5 with a rough streak of five losses in a row which took place ahead of the State Cup break.

This coming Friday night the reds will visit Monaco for a chance to earn home court advantage in the quarterfinals. But with or without home court, Hapoel will no doubt be looked at as the blueprint for success in a team’s first season in the Euroleague.

Over at Maccabi, they suffered all season long from a brutal start to the campaign going an abysmal 2-8 over the course of the opening ten games. With that type of record, Head Coach Oded Katash’s fate was in the balance and the atrocious start almost saw him sent packing. However, instead of dismissing the coach he was able to start playing catch up which he had to do for the entire season. Over the next twenty games Maccabi went 12-8 to get the yellow-and-blue into the post season race for a Play In spot.

But, the damage had already been done in the first ten games as Maccabi needed to dig, dig and dig some more to get out of a hole that had left them all the way at the bottom of the twenty team standings. The club looked discombobulated as it was pretty much a new group of players with very few holdovers from last season and Maccabi paid a very steep price for that. In addition, the roster was very, very thin without any extra fat or in this case extra players and if one or two were out injured it left the yellow-and-blue exposed.

Maccabi began the final stretch of eight games 4-0 and in prime position to snag one of those Play In places with four game to go which included a double week of Baskonia who are in 17th place and Paris who find themselves in 15th place and Maccabi basically did the unforgivable against two teams that they should have picked up wins on the road. They lost both. Add to that a Derby defeat to Hapoel Tel Aviv with one game to go against 18th place Bologna and their season was done.

Katash was extremely disturbed and distraught following the losses and blamed things that were not related to basketball as to why they played so poorly in the first two defeats where they didn’t play a lick of defense. Part of that falls on the bench boss and part on the players.

Following the Baskonia loss, it was announced that Katash had inked a 3-year extension which is good news for continuity, but it’s clear that Maccabi needs to make sure they have the right players in place going forward for next season in order not to have such a painful start of the campaign. Without the horses, the yellow-and-blue will not be in the race yet again and that is something Claudio Coldebella, the team’s general manager will need to address as soon as possible.

Maccabi, the Israeli team that has been synonymous with the Euroleague took some serious hits this year as Hapoel was able to have a much more successful season and that all had to do with consistency from the get go and a plan in place. If Maccabi wants to compete in the same league as Hapoel next season, they must do the same, if not, they will have yet another difficult year abroad.