Euroleague basketball returns to Israel for the first time since the start of the war which began on October 7, 2023 as Maccabi Tel Aviv hosts ASVEL Villeurbanne at Yad Eliyahu on Thursday (21:05) as excitement was in the air 24 hours before tip-off at the pregame practice. There had been plenty of anticipation for this day already for weeks, just as soon as the ceasefire in Gaza went into effect a few months ago. <\/p>\n
With that yellow-and- blue Head Coach Oded Katash will be on the sidelines once again just as he was on October 5, 2023 when Maccabi defatted Partizan Belgrade which was the last time the Euroleague was on display in Israel until now. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe level of excitement? I don’t know, I still can’t believe it’s happening,\u201d Katash began. \u201cWe\u2019ve been through so much since that game before October 7th. We\u2019re very excited, and this is a return to sanity. We missed the fans, the energy. EuroLeague here in Israel is truly exciting, it\u2019s special for us. We\u2019ve been waiting for this for a long time. There will be excitement and over-motivation; some players will react to it differently. Hopefully we can channel it into good things.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the addition of center Zach Hankins earlier in the day Katash now has a trend and tested big man who has played in Israel and in Europe which should be a help to Maccabi, \u201cHe still hasn\u2019t had a practice with the team, we\u2019ll have to see how he feels. I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll pick things up quickly. Physically, he\u2019s in game shape, which was one of the important things for us when we were looking for a player. He\u2019ll help us on both sides of the floor and he\u2019s a team player which is something we need along with European experience. As a coach I had teams that played against Hankins and from what I can sense, he\u2019s a player who thrives on team basketball, and that\u2019s something we like to do here, so in that sense it will fit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roman Sorkin also spoke about the EuroLeague\u2019s return to Yad Eliyahu and the fans coming back for the game against ASVEL Villeurbanne, \u201cWe\u2019re excited, we can\u2019t believe it\u2019s happening. They\u2019ve started decorating the stands a bit \u2014 these are feelings we missed. I can\u2019t wait. It\u2019s very hard to beat us here; I think they (ASVEL) play better than their record shows, their games are close, so we\u2019re taking this seriously. We\u2019ll have the fans supporting us, and that will give us something extra to play for. The staff is preparing us and we\u2019ll come ready.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we look better, but it\u2019s not enough games yet to say we\u2019re on a run. We\u2019re a new team, we\u2019re in a process here, new players are joining and will get into the rhythm. I\u2019m happy we\u2019re looking good. Zach Hankins?<\/p>\n
The big man added about the cub signing Zach Hankins, \u201cIt\u2019s really strange to play with him as I\u2019m used to playing against him. He\u2019s a great played and he\u2019ll give us what we were \u2018missing.\u2019 Good luck to him. It\u2019s very hard to beat us here in the arena. We missed it and now we\u2019ll have more time to rest without flights, that was the goal: to change the season and win more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Euroleague basketball returns to Israel for the first time since the start of the war which began on October 7, 2023 as Maccabi Tel Aviv hosts ASVEL Villeurbanne at Yad Eliyahu on Thursday (21:05) as excitement was in the air 24 hours before tip-off at the pregame practice. There had been plenty of anticipation for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":106247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-164273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holy-land-hoops","tag-euroleague","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n