I’m at a loss of words as what to write about a throughly embarrassing performance by Israel in a 75-62 home loss to Slovenia in World Cup qualifying. The Blue & White from top to bottom were outplayed, out hustled and just plain old outdone in game that saw Guy Goodes squad look so discombobulated at times that it was painful to watch.

There is plenty of finger pointing and blame to go around, no doubt about that, but there is no excuse for an Israel team with enough veteran players that they should have looked so poor and on occasion just sad. Yes, they pulled to within 56-51 at the end of the third quarter, but that was that.

New captain Tomer Ginat was the only Israel player who finished the game in double figures with 12 points, 24 turnovers with 17 coming in the first half is almost unforgivable and 41% from 2-points is just way too low, especially for a home game that saw only 2,491 fans attend the Friday afternoon matinee.

“This was of course not a good game for Israel especially when you turn the ball over 24 times points and the opponent scores 26 from that plus we had a poor percentage shooting game,” Goodes remarked. “There were a lot of new players here and it is a learning experience and sometimes it’s not an easy lesson to take. Everyone who was here deserved to wear the national team jersey.”

Granted, many players never had really been with one another before but there were enough that should have been able to make a difference. Slovenia was in the same boat and they certainly knew how to win the game so the fact that Israel was only together for a few days is no excuse.

Hapoel Tel Aviv had 3 representatives on this team with Ginat, Bar Timor and Idan Zalmanson who played under 10 minutes while Maccabi Tel Aviv has a pair in Rafi Menco and Iftach Ziv who played a combined 30 minutes of a possible 60 and scored a measly 5 points. Those 5 players scored a total of 28 points which is just not enough of a contribution in order to win.

Noam Dovrat who played 15 minutes and scored 8 points should have been out there longer and looked solid in his time on the court, while Gaby Chachashvili (5p in 16 mins), Niv Misgav (6p in 28 mins) and Netanel Artzi ( 7p in 23 mins) all made their official Israel National Team debuts in a game that counted. Two players in Or Cornelius and Michael Brisker didn’t play at all.

“I think everyone wanted to win this game and we gave the best that we could,” Ginat said following the game. “We weren’t good enough as we only scored 62 points at home. We had way too many turnovers and they were more aggressive than us, so games like this are hard to win at home. It’s disappointing like all other defeats.”

The effort was no doubt there from the players, but at the end of the day they were just not good enough. So have said it’s because the Israel league’s rules to have only one domestic player on the court is a reason why the players are just not good enough, but I don’t buy that excuse.

Israel has some top notch players who couldn’t take part in this window due to playing in the Euroleague and the NBA, plus Roman Sorkin who wouldn’t have been released for this game by Maccabi Tel Aviv regardless of his injury were just not available.

There were a couple of other players that Goodes could have called up but chose not to.

Max Heidegger for one was not contacted to come to camp and if the team needed offense, he could have supplied it 17.4 points, 6.8 assists and 3.2 rebounds to go along with 38% from downtown. You’re telling me the naturalized Israeli couldn’t have helped?

Amit Simhon who is at Hapoel Haifa also was shunned by the National Team and he’s scoring 14.5 point per game while shooting an incredible 56% from deep (14/25). How does Simhon not have a place on this team?

Add to the mix that the Blue & White have a lame duck coach in Goodes running the show, this all makes for a perfect disaster zone.

Choices were made and the Israel Basketball Association will live with them. Unfortunately the decisions are not ones that are helping matters. Even having Israel playing exclusively at the Drive In Arena and not bringing the national team to other locales in the country be in Beer Sheva, Haifa or Jerusalem to name a few places, also doesn’t help spread the wealth and raise interest.

The IBBA needs to do some serious soul searching as to how they can clean up the mess that saw them also have a disappointing summer at the Eurobasket while also not being able to even prepare for the tournament properly with poor opposition ahead of the competition. With all of israel so called great connections, this should have been top priority.

Those are just a few things that need to be cleaned up among so, so many.

With three games remaining in qualifying and a road tilt in Sweden on Monday, Israel has to get the ball rolling on a plan, a real full blown plan that can take them back on the right track. That was the track that Oded Katash had put them on before his contract was not renewed. Hopefully, the Blue & White and all involved can do plenty of soul searching and self reflection in order to get back onto that track and find a way to see the light at the end of the tunnel.