1) The Israel National Basketball Team fell in dramatic fashion in overtime on the road in Germany 112-98. The drama actually took place at the end of the regulation with Israel ahead 92-90. Tomer Ginat missed hitting the rim on the back end of a pair of free throws leaving 0.4 seconds left on the clock, giving Oklahoma City Thunder guard Dennis Schroder the opportunity to pass the ball in to Maximilian Kleber who put in the day bucket as time expired. Once the game headed into overtime Israel was out of steam as Germany ran away with the victory.

Jake Cohen led Israel with 23 points, Tamir Blatt added 16 points and 10 assists, Nimrod Levi and Itay Segev each had 14 points while Yovel Zoosman dropped 13 points, pulled down 7 rebounds and dished out 8 assists for Israel. Dennis Schroder scored 30 points and handed out 13 assists while Robin Benzing added 24 points in the win.

Head Coach Oded Katash, “It was a tough one, and we found a real special way to lose the game. We played great for 30 minutes, and we lost the game twice. The way we lost was tough for the players. We have a lot for young players and it could have been a very special one for the guys. I am really proud of my players. I am the first to learn from these games and I am taking the responsibility for the loss. I have only good things to say about my players.”

Itay Segev added, “Germany is a very high level team and we all saw that today. We played good basketball today, unfortunately we didn’t come up with the win, but there are a lot of positives we can take from the game.”

Jake Cohen also commented, “Unfortunately I’ve lost games like this before and it’s never fun but we have to take this as a learning experience. We have a young team and hopefully this teaches us a valuable lesson so it doesn’t happen to us again.”

Moving in the right direction: “We have a couple more games coming up. We are getting better and we are moving in the right direction which is better than losing and not getting better which is not the case.”

Having a good game: “I feel like I could have done more. Its frustrating to lose and any time you lose you feel that you didn’t do enough.”

2) Israel Basketball Exhibition Games
Maccabi Tel Aviv 87-84 Khimki Moscow
Johnny O’Bryant 23p/7r, Jeremy Pargo 19p

Maccabi Tel Aviv 81-87 Panathinaikos
Johnny O’Bryant 26p, Jeremy Pargo 16p

Maccabi Tel Aviv 95-99 AEK Athens in OT
Jeremy Pargo 28p, Angelo Caloiaro 13p

Hapoel Eilat 78-75 Hapoel Tel Aviv
Elijah Bryant scored 27 points for Eilat while Lenzelle Smith added 26 points in the win. Jonathan Holmes scored 18 points for the Tel Aviv Reds.

Hapoel Gilboa/Galil 88-85 Hapoel Beer Sheva
James Kelly dropped 22 points and Bryant Crawford added 18 points in the victory while Amit Gershon scored 17 points (5 3-pts) while Travis Warech chipped in with 15 points in the loss.

3) Hapoel Beer Sheva BC had their opening press conference for the upcoming 2018/19 season. Head Coach Rami Hadar looked to the challenges ahead, “I found something new here, something different than the usual and I’ve been in this business for may years. There is a lot of desire, belief and good atmosphere around the team. We looked for certain qualities when we built this team for the Winner League, players with good character and high basketball IQ.”