1) It’s strange to play the final of a preseason tournament well into the season but that’s exactly what Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Ramat Gan did on Sunday night as the yellow-and-blue took a 86-83 win to hoist the Winner Cup high into the air. Originally scheduled to take place before the domestic season began, the Winner Cup was played throughout September but needed to be postponed due to the various threats of attack by Iran as the Home Front Command cancelled all large gathering in the center of the country. Regardless of when the game was supposed to take place and when it did, Maccabi took an early lead that went to double digits by halftime. But as they have done time and time again especially in the Euroleague, Oded Katash’s squad fell apart in the third quarter as Ramat Gan came right back into the game and grabbed a 62-61 lead after thirty minutes of play.

However, Maccabi pulled it together over the course of the final ten minutes without their point guard Tamir Blatt who suffered a knee injury that looked a lot worse than the diagnosis that will keep him out 3-4 weeks. Katash’s crew has not been able to stay consistent throughout a 40 minutes game and that’s got to be super concerning the bench boss. Double-digit leads against Panathinaikos, Olympiacos and Ramat Gan all washed away over the final two quarters and that’s something that Katash needs to find a solution too and quick. Sitting at 3-7 in Euroleague play with two “winnable” games coming up at Milano and Alba Berlin, Maccabi has very little room for error at this point in the season. Two victories will move the record to 5-7 with yet another Double Week at “home” in Belgrade against Paris and Barcelona who are a pair of teams sporting 7-3 records and are in the upper half of the standings. There are no easy games in the Euroleague which is one of competition’s sayings and nothing can ever, ever be taken for granted when it comes to the 34 games that each team plays. With that, if Maccabi has any designs of advancing to the Play In and the Playoffs, Katash will need to find a way for his squad to not blow significant leads over the course of the final twenty minutes of the game.

2) How awesome is Marcus Foster? How incredible a scorer is the Creighton and Kansas State sniper? Well pretty incredible as he helped Hapoel Tel Aviv pretty much singlehandedly defeat Hapoel Holon 72-68, one of his former teams. Foster had scored no points over the course of the first half but then took matters into his own two hands and rattled off 23 points going 5/6 from downtown while also putting home a massive dunkaroo to just slip by the hosts. It’s funny to think that as the season was beginning back at the end of September that Foster was already on his way out and was in search for a new team. His future in red looked mighty cloudy and an exit was in the cards. But before one could say boo, Foster was starting to impact the club every which way and scored in bundles helping Hapoel Tel Aviv pick up wins both in the EuroCup and in the Israeli league where they are perfect.

The big question now for Foster and company is how their new head coach Dimitrios Itoudis will change things up with the team that his now assistant Stefanos Dedas has stepped aside to allow his former to take up the Reds reins. The Greek tactician will make Hapoel Tel Aviv even a more interesting story and adds as whole other layer to the team that seems to be in the news day in and day out without fail. Itoudis gives Hapoel a massive amount of credibility around the continent after signing a 3-year deal to lead the project that owner Ofer Yannay sees as getting his team into the Euroleague. Itoudis is one of the most no nonsense bench bosses who has garnered a ton of respect after winning a pair of continental championships with CSKA Moscow while also taking home 5 more as an assistant to the Godfather of European Head Coaches in Zeljko Obradovic. There will be demands for rigid structure and a total commitment to the club and its goals while every single player will need to buy in or else they will be taking a long walk off a short pier out of the club ala Mike James style. As has been said before Hapoel Tel Aviv is the gift that just keeps on giving.

3) Jared Harper once again came up big for Hapoel Jerusalem as the star guard was on the top of his game yet again helping the Reds to a tight 80-78 victory over Hapoel Afula. Harper not only scored 28 points but drained two triples in crunch time to make sure Yonatan Alon’s team would record the tough win. Afula and Ariel Beit Halachmi made life miserable for Jerusalem in what was a classic trap game for the capital city squad following a big win against Bourg in EuroCup play just a few days prior and with the international break coming up. It was the perfect recipe for Afula to steal a game and boy did they ever come close with terrific performances by Armaan Franklin and Jalen Lecque, but it wasn’t going to be enough. However Afula brought back an Israeli league stalwart in J’Covan Brown, a player who Beit Halachmi knows well and first brought to Israel when he was coaching Hapoel Gilboa Galil. How much of an effect will Brown have is yet to be determined but as long he passes his physical and he does long like he’s slimmed down a tremendous amount the quintessential leader and sharpshooter will no doubt be a huge asset for Afula.

Going back to Jerusalem, Alon’s got to be very happy with the state his team is in despite losing his two big men and that is something that can’t be taken for granted. That is also true about the quiet that has permeated the club as they just go about their business. No major headlines, no scandals, no soap operas. It’s just been putting their heads down and working hard, the way it should be. Perhaps that’s old fashioned and not Barstoolesque but good ole elbow grease is still undefeated.

4) Amit Sherf must have given a huge sigh of relief after Ryan Turell for all intents and purposes saved his bacon in a 97-82 win over Kiryat Ata. Bacon may not be Kosher and the Orthodox Turell would surely not take a bite out of it, but the Yeshiva University product did everything in his power to put in one impressive performance. In fact, it was a perfect performance going 2/2 from 2 and 4/4 from 3 as Turell hit a triple to begin each of the last there quarters of the victory in a game that looked like it was going to go south very quickly for the hosts with their bench boss perhaps paying the price. Heading into the game. Nes Ziona sat with a 1-5 record as losses to a number of heavyweights to begin the campaign may have been acceptable but last week’s defeat to Galil Elyon coupled with a defeat at Holon and another one to Kiryat Ata would have just been too much for the club to handle.

However, after a brutal opening quarter, Sherf’s talented team put it together thanks to Turell and Bryce Brown as they found a way to tie the game up by halftime before running away with the win in the second half. Plenty of pressure was lifted off of his shoulders and a player who was just participating in his second game with a good number of unknowns in Israel was able to drop his shots one at a time to the delight of the crowd as he showed a ton of emotions sending the fans into euphoria. Watching Turell was a real pleasure and he has not disappointed. The only bit of advance that I would like to pass on to Nes Ziona is to go after the former YU graduates who are living all over the center of the country and let them know that one of their own is playing on a weekly basis in their own backyards.

5) Bnei Herzliya is playing some very good basketball and are sitting with a 5-2 record. Yes, the team that has been pretty much rebuilt from scratch with a rookie heads coach is winning, winning and winning to their hearts delight as they knocked off Elitzur Netanya 85-80. Yehu Oralnd’s squad are playing with 5 imports which gives them an advantage right off of the bat against the smaller clubs but also gives them an equal playing field when they face the big boys like Maccabi Tel Aviv, a team that they just beat last week. Jimmy Clark and Xavier Sneed have been bingos while Chris Silva has been superb, Josh Hawley fits the team like a glove and last but not least Deshon Francis has also done a nice job. There has been talk about Silva moving teams to perhaps Maccabi or Hapoel Tel Aviv and that would be a shame as Orland has his squad running smoothly on all cylinders.