The Under-20 Israel National Basketball Team defeated Poland 104-74 in an exhibition game leading up to the European Championships which will be held in Podgorica, Montenegro between July 16-24. The Blue & White raced out to an early lead and never looked back as Ron Zipper, Amit Aharoni and Gilad Levy led the way as Oren Aharoni’s squad shot an incredible 21/27 from inside the arc while going 15/28 from 3-point land in the victory.

Zipper, who was the darling of last year’s Under-18 European Challenger scored 17 points while going 5/7 from deep, big man Gilad Levy who had spent the past few seasons in Spain at Estudiantes and will return to play in Israel this campaign along with drafting to the Israel Defense Forces added 12 points, Yuval Levin chipped in with a solid 11 points as Amit Aharoni dished out 9 of Israel’s 26 assists in the win. Talented Polish forward Igor Milicic who transferred from the Virginia Cavaliers to UNC-Charlotte paced the visitors with 14 points in the defeat.

The Friday afternoon game attracted many Israeli basketball personalities including legendary Maccabi coach Zvika Sherf, current Maccabi Tel Aviv general manager Nikola Vujcic, the Yellow & Blue coach in waiting Oded Katash, Hapoel Gilboa Galil’s new bench boss Rami Hadar, Nes Ziona’s Elad Hasin and chairman Yaniv Mizrachi along with Lior Lubin who will be in charge of Hapoel Beer Sheva together with sports director Daniel Ravitz who just have been happy to see both Zipper and Roie Paretzky each having solid performances.

Following the game Milicic and Vujcic who is his Godfather, spoke for some time as Milicic’s father Igor Sr., the senior Poland National team coach is also rumored to be in the mix as an assistant under Katash.

“We had some good moments on defense and played well as we had a big rotation,” coach Oren Aharoni said. “We are just at the beginning of our preparations and I wanted to see as many players as I could but we still have a long and tough way to go. Defense will be the key and that has to be very good going forward.”

“This was Ron Zipper first game and he is a player that we really believe in and will be an important part of this national team. Gilad Levy will play with me for a second campaign and he has really advanced very nicely but this is just the start. As for Noam Dovrat who will join us next week, he has played with all of the players here thanks to the basketball association’s project which ensured that the guys would be together for 5-6 years.”

Zipper who played this past season in Asheklon and will now move to Beer Sheva this coming season also spoke to The Sports Rabbi following the game, “Things here are great and we have been working hard already for two weeks with the fitness coach and with Oren on the tactical side of things so we came in ready for this game. I personally feel very good and I feel ready to go physically as well as my shooting so I am 100% prepared for the championships.”