While the Israel professional basketball leagues may be off for the summer, the Israel Youth National teams have been busy on the court with the Under-20 Men and Women’s teams in action along with the Blue & White Maccabiah squad.

The Maccabiah team is comprised of players between the ages of 17-20 and had put in close to a month of practice ahead of the tournament. The Blue & White are 2-1 after their opening three games as they have defeated Australia 85-44 and Canada 103-70 while succumbing to a tough France team 90-79.

The team is coached by Adir Amar who has been part of the Bnei Herzliya youth staff for a number of years while the top players thus far have been Hapoel Gilboa Galil’s Daniel Goyte with 14.3 points per game, Ariel Isaak with 12.7 ppg, Ziv Weisman with 11.3 ppg and Omer Hamama with 10.3 ppg. Israel will play the United States on Tuesday and Argentina on Thursday while the final and 3rd place games will take place on Sunday.

The Under-20 men’s team also sport a 2-1 record after there games at the European Championships having downed Greece 69-65 and Italy 83-82 in overtime while the Blue & White fell to Portugal 90-86 also in overtime. Oren Aharoni who coaches Bnei Herzliya’s top team is behind the bench for Israel as captain Noam Dovrat leads the way with 18 ppg, big man Gilad Levy has 13.7 ppg and 11.3 rebounds while Harel Rinski has 14.3 ppg and Amit Aharoni has 9.7 ppg. Israel finished at the top of their group and will play in the Round of 16 on Wednesday against Slovenia.

On the Women’s side, Tal Natan’s team finished in third place at the European Championships Division B and will move up to DA for the 2023 tournament. Yarden Garzon was named to the tournament’s Starting 5 with 20 points per game and 7.3 rebounds.

The Under-18 and Under-16 teams will begin their respective tournaments at the end of July and early August.

As for the Senior Israel National Team, they will regroup for training camp at the start of August and will then play five exhibition games ahead of a pair of World Cup qualifiers on the road at Finland and home against Sweden and then the Eurobasket tournament which begins at the beginning of September in Prague.

The Blue & White with Deni Avdija will face the University of Auburn on August 8th which will then be followed up with two games in Georgia and a pair against Romania back at home.