Maccabi Ramat Gan faces Falco-Vulcano Szombathely in Basketball Champions League Play In game 1 action of their best-of-3 series Wednesday night (20:00 Israel time) in Hungary while Hapoel Jerusalem visit Cluj in EuroCup play at 7pm.

Shmulik Brenner’s squad has been the darlings of the BCL and after clipping Jerusalem 87-86 this past weekend in Israeli League play as they will look to take the next step in their European campaign. With star guard Roi Huber playing perhaps his best basketball after being named The Sports Rabbi Play of the Week, the bench boss has a multi-dimensional guard who can provide a variety of roles for Ramat Gan depending on what a specific game needs.

The 27-year old scored 21 points and went 5/6 from deep but really was the key in mounting a double-digit comeback to notch the win for Brenner’s team which has plenty of other weapons at his disposal including big man Amin Stevens along with guard Kendale McCullum and shooter Roberto Gallinat.

But it’s clear that Huber is the engine that makes Ramat Gan run.

“Sometimes I ask Huber to be the floor general,” Brenner said. “Other times I need him to take the ball and really score. He’s a player who understands what we need but that’s not the case every game. There are games that Amin can score 35 points but that may not necessarily what we need.”

Huber himself understands how the club has been operating and with that also hopes that one day very soon he will be a stalwart with the Israel National Team at this summer’s Eurobasket, “It’s a long time away but every player wants to be playing with the national team. I’m focusing on these games now and if I’m invited great and if not it will be fine as well.”

This series may certainly be Huber’s coming out party but Brenner knows that he has quality veterans like Adam Ariel as well as depth coming off of his bench.

“Adam has really developed over the past two years with us,” Brenner continued. “He may have been just a shooter before but he has been able to do some many different things for us whether it’s defense or hitting 2-pointers but we need his fight and the way he battles. The team as a whole is most important than the individual player for us.”

Brenner only uses 4 import players in his Israeli league lineup while many of the top teams and contenders use five. However, that is not the be all and end all for the bench boss and will only look to make a change if that move will really make a difference in his team as he has plenty of support from the roster of players he has already. In Europe, Brenner can use five imports and will do so when appropriate.

“I expect a lot from my bench and that’s first and foremost. There are things that we are good in and things we need to work on. If there is an opportunity to strengthen the squad we will look at that but only of it will really help us.”

As for the upcoming series, Brenner knows that the Hungarian side will not be an easy opponent, “We are preparing vigorously for our first game in the play-in. Our opponent is the Hungarian champion, a team that has some players who have been playing together for several years. This is a team that plays well at home, well-trained and have serious size. Our task will not be easy. At the same time, we are motivated and very much want to continue our positive play in a week that started well with the victory over Jerusalem. It’s important for us to move up to the next level in the BCL. This is a big professional challenge, but we believe and are confident in ourselves.”

Over at Hapoel Jerusalem, the club is hoping that the stunning defeat to Ramat Gan won’t have any effect on their game play in Europe as they ready for a tough Romanian team in Cluj. Losing in such a dramatic fashion can hurt a club, but the Reds have had plenty of challenges that they have been able to overcome and that will no doubt be yet another one as they look to cement their place in second spot in Division B just behind of Valencia.

“This is a very tough game against an excellent team in great shape with players who have a great future in European basketball,” Head Coach Yonatan Alon said. “We are doing the maximum with the tools we have and trying to accumulate victories until our injured players return.”

The injured players who are out have left Jerusalem playing shorthanded for some time and many players including star guard Jared Harper has had to carry a lot of the load. That in itself may have been the cause of the defeat to Ramat Gan the Auburn product explained, “You can say that but I didn’t want to use that as an excuse. It’s too bad that we did not have this game at home. We started out slow and it wasn’t our best game defensively. We got a lead double digit and you can’t lose that in the fourth quarter, we knew that they would fight all the way and they deserve credit.”

Alon also spoke about the exhaustion being an issue in that tight loss to Ramat Gan, “We didn’t freeze, I think we ran out of strength. We made decisions, both out of fatigue and we were too reckless. We should have played more under control, we didn’t do it. They played an amazing quarter, we weren’t able to stop them. It was a really depressing game. Ramat Gan is a good team, the game could have gone either way. They’re a good team and they deserve credit. In my opinion, the lack of stability was in our effort, we weren’t consistent, we didn’t do a good enough job today.”

The bench boss also spoke about the injuries that his team has had to deal with, “Any team in the league that loses three Israeli players for an extended period of time won’t be able to handle the situation game in and game out. We are going with what we have and try to get the most out of it. The burden falls on other players, the same players each time and it’s not healthy and not good for us.”

After Cluj, Jerusalem will head to Yad Eliyahu for a date with Hapoel Tel Aviv on Saturday night at 7:05pm in a game that Harper knows will be a tough one but will come down to how they play on the defensive side of the floor.

“We’ll have to be great on defense,” Harper said. “Try to pick up our defense again and then things will work out. If we control what we can, the defense, the effort and the energy, we’ll have a chance to be in the game. We scored a lot of points against Ramat Gan, but we didn’t do the job on defense. We really want to win but it won’t be easy.”