The Israel Under-20 Men’s Basketball Team ended the group stage of the European Championship with a 2-1 record in first place in Group B and will now ready to face Greece in Wednesday in the knockout rounds of the competition. Head Coach Elad Hasin’s squad opened the annual tournament which is being held in Gdynia, Poland with a pair of wins over Czechia 82-74 and then Italy 90-72, but fell to Germany 73-61 in their third game in as many days.

Noam Yaacov has been one of the stars so far for the blue-and-white with 15 points, 5.7 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game while big man Alon Michaeli has put in a strong tournament with14.3 points and 8.3 boards while Eyal Harel with 11 points, Shachar Doron with 10 points and Yoav Berman with 9.7 points per contest round out the squad’s top five players.

Greece enter the round of 16 matchup with Israel sporting a 1-2 record with a win over Serbia in their opening game which was followed by two losses to Poland and France. The blue-and-white which won the competition in 2018 and 2019 will look to do one better than last year’s team which made it to the finals where they ultimately fell to France.

Hasin spoke about the tournament as Israel now heads into the knockout round, “Overall we had a good first stage. We played a first game against the Czech Republic and the first game is always a minefield. We have seen in the past teams that lost the first game and went very far in the championship and the Czech Republic is a team that can make it difficult for everyone. As we see the results in the tournament so far, teams like France and others can win and lose to almost any other.

“We finished first in our group after a huge victory over Italy which then made the game against Germany not that critical in terms of placement. Of course we wanted to win, but we also took the opportunity to divide up the minutes and give more players a chance to take to the court. The Germans were more aggressive, they even played a bit violently and the referees let them.”
Regarding tomorrow’s opponent Greece, Hasin added. “They is a good team, very aggressive and tactical. A team that almost beat France, beat a strong team in Serbia, but on the other hand lost to Poland. We will have to come very prepared for their aggressiveness and tactically prepared for the things they do on the offensive side of the game.

“It will not be easy,” Hasin continued. This is the European Championship with 16 good teams and Greece, a team that also finished on the podium last year with a bronze medal is a team that is known as one that almost always goes to the knockout stages of the competition. But we are the Israeli team and we will do everything to represent our country in the best possible way, so that everyone in the country will be able to be proud of us. We will come in ready for this challenge.”

The winner between Israel and Greece will meet the winner of the game between Lithuania and Turkey in the quarterfinals while the losers will also meet each other for the first contest of the classification games 9-16.