{"id":62552,"date":"2022-07-31T10:31:06","date_gmt":"2022-07-31T10:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/?p=62552"},"modified":"2022-08-08T10:45:46","modified_gmt":"2022-08-08T10:45:46","slug":"maccabiah-champ-berman-talks-pearls-auburns-israel-tour-smith-in-nba-being-jewish-in-alabama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/en\/maccabiah-champ-berman-talks-pearls-auburns-israel-tour-smith-in-nba-being-jewish-in-alabama\/","title":{"rendered":"Maccabiah champ Berman talks Pearl’s Auburn Israel tour, Smith in NBA, being Jewish in Alabama"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Auburn University Tigers are on a special tour of Israel thanks to head coach Bruce Pearl who wanted to make sure that his team got off to a good start ahead of the 2022\/2023 season both on and off of the court. Pearl, who is Jewish, has made a number of trips to the Holy Land including not only one this last year but also back in 2009 when he was the head coach of the United States Maccabiah Team which won a gold medal at those games.<\/p>\n

However, Pearl is not the only member of the Tigers who can now claim to be a Maccabiah champion.\u00a0Lior Berman who was part of this year\u2019s squad that took the gold at the \u201cJewish Olympics\u201d can also now add his name to a very exclusive list. The Senior, who had a superb tournament as he averaged 12.7 points per game and was the American\u2019s most consistent player throughout the competition spoke to The Sports Rabbi about playing at a world class program in Auburn, growing up as a Jew in Alabama, his dreams and desires and of course what it\u2019s like to be a Maccabiah Champ.
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Lior Berman – Photo Credit: Dov Halickman<\/p><\/div>
\n\u201cIt feels great and we worked real hard for this. I think we were the hardest working team and we spent the most time practicing in the gym and it paid off. This is something that I will remember for the rest of my life, I\u2019ll always have this medal but what you really remember is your teammates, your coaches and all of the experiences that you go through together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime you can represent your country it\u2019s really cool. I was a little hesitant to come because I was missing some Auburn basketball off-season workouts. But coach Pearl, who once coached at the Games said it\u2019s a once in a lifetime opportunity and he said go since I\u2019m in a good spot with Auburn. Now that I\u2019m older I have had a chance to explore and meet even more people, plus my teammates have been awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berman, who is entering his senior year at Auburn grew up in Birmingham, Alabama and began playing sport at an early age thanks to his father Elan\u2019s love of the game. While he also participated in other sports such as football and lacrosse, Berman always felt that basketball was his natural calling.
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Lior Berman – Photo Credit: Dov Halickman<\/p><\/div>\u00a0
\nBut above all, the 6\u201d4 guard explained how crucial family not only during his younger years but also having his parents and grandparents supporting him in Israel during the Maccabiah as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great growing up in Birmingham and my grandparents lived close to us so we always got together for Shabbat dinner on Friday night and for the holidays the entire family would all come in. My grandmother from my dad\u2019s side is from Israel and my grandparents used to live half time in Israel and half time In Birmingham until a few years ago when they moved to Caesarea full time, so that is really cool. It was really special to have my parents here and they have supported me all the way through along with my grandparents and my aunt who also lives right outside of Jerusalem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berman began developing his game at Mountain Brook High School under the guidance of Birmingham native and current Samford coach Bucky McMillan who helped lead the school to three State Championships.
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Lior Berman – Photo Credit: Dov Halickman<\/p><\/div>
\nFrom there it was off to college and while a number of offers were available to Berman from various NCAA programs, Auburn was clearly his first choice even if it meant he was going to begin as a walk-on, \u201cI had a lot of DII and DIII offers as well as from some DI schools and they were good schools but I loved Coach Pearl. When I grew up I always had in the back of my mind that I knew I wanted to be at Auburn. We had a meeting with Coach Pearl for close to two hours and I knew for certain that I wanted to go to there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I had that meeting, coach Pearl said that if you were good enough you would play and I knew I could but coming on as a walk-on is making sure that you are always staying right and ready. Scholarship guys were playing together and as a walk-on you never know when you\u2019ll get called up to play. But over time I\u2019d get called up and I\u2019d have good day which have me the reinforcement and the knowledge that I\u2019d have a chance. Since my freshman year I\u2019ve worked my way up and it\u2019s been a great run.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nThere was obviously an instant bond between Berman and Pearl due to the fact that they were both Jewish, \u201cThere is a Passover Seder at coach Pearl\u2019s house and he invited us to it which was great. Having a Jewish coach is awesome. It\u2019s really cool that we can have conversations about Judaism and staying proud of our religion. There aren\u2019t many Jews at Auburn but there is a Hillel which is great and coach Pearl throws a Chanukah party there every year and everyone always comes.\u201d
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Bruce Pearl – Photo Credit: Auburn Tigers<\/p><\/div>
\nLast season, Berman was part of an Auburn team that won the regular season title and also advanced to the NCAA Tournament with a 28-6 record but were eventually eliminated in the second round by Miami. This season with a number of top recruits, Berman hopes that Auburn can repeat the feat while building off of the past campaign\u2019s success. <\/p>\n

\u201cMarch Madness is something that you\u2019d watch every year and you never think you\u2019ll be there, but it was awesome. Just getting that March Madness gear and having the season payoff by getting the two seed was cool. Watching it on TV and then being there was surreal. I think we have a great team and can get there yet again. We want to win championships and last year we won the regular season title. I want to increase my role to help the team and I\u2019m always going to \u2018stay right and ready\u2019.\u201d\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nOver the past few seasons, Auburn has also been able to develop some top level talent who have made it to the NBA including Isaac Okoro, Davion Mitchell, Sharife Cooper, JT Thor, while Jabari Smith was sleeted 3rd overall in this year\u2019s NBA Draft while Walker Kessler went 22nd.
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Lior Berman – Photo Credit: Dov Halickman<\/p><\/div>
\nSmith, who is close with Berman off of the court, was selected by the Houston Rockets could in fact be the most talented player to come out of Auburn since Hall of Fame forward and Dream Team member Charles Barkley.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s something that you call a natural talent and is someone who has an extreme work ethic. When those two meet, it creates something very special. We had a breakfast club at Auburn where guys would get together at 5:30-6:00am to shoot and he\u2019d be there always working. I\u2019m sure he will do well in the NBA and he will adapt and work even harder. I consider him one of my good friends, he\u2019s a great player, unselfish and a great competitor.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\n\u201cIt\u2019s really cool that Smith was drafted and it speaks to the level of how we are playing in college. To think that he along with Walter Kessler were drafted in the first round and are both going to be in the NBA making millions of dollars, it\u2019s just another motivator. It\u2019s just really cool that my friend is in the NBA. The guys on the team held a draft party and we were just watching them get drafted, it was amazing.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nThe Bermanator, a nickname that he picked up over the course of his young career may not have one specific player he likes ot pattern his game after but he does have a tremendous amount of respect for one that he feels epitomizes his own play, \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been one player but I love watching the NBA and taking things from various guys. A player like Pat Connaughton who at 6\u201d4 can rebound and shoot and he\u2019s amazing at those things. I like to pull things from different players across the spectrum.\u201d \u00a0
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Lior Berman – Photo Credit: Dov Halickman<\/p><\/div>
\nAs for Berman\u2019s plans post-Auburn, coming to Israel to play is certainly a strong possibility, \u201cI can definitely see playing in Israel as I didn\u2019t see myself hanging it up after college. The NBA is always the goal but Israel is somewhere where you can play and feel at home. Playing here would be awesome.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nWhile the Maccabiah may be over, Berman will still have a chance to play a few more games in Israel before heading back to the United States with Auburn as the Tigers will face the Israel Maccabiah Team, an All-Star squad as well as the National Team which will be heading to the Eurobasket at the beginning of September.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach Pearl has been working on taking the team on a trip to Israel for a long time. It\u2019s crazy how things work out and that five days after the Maccabiah, my college is coming here. It\u2019s a dream. I\u2019m most excited that my teammates are coming here and they will have to expand their food palates. When you\u2019re with your team on the road like this, that\u2019s when you bond and it\u2019s going to be the best thing for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Auburn University Tigers are on a special tour of Israel thanks to head coach Bruce Pearl who wanted to make sure that his team got off to a good start ahead of the 2022\/2023 season both on and off of the court. Pearl, who is Jewish, has made a number of trips to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":62398,"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":[9,4074],"tags":[5089,5113,5088,5112,1101],"class_list":["post-62552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holy-land-hoops","category-jews-in-sports","tag-auburn","tag-birmingham","tag-bruce-pearl","tag-lior-berman","tag-maccabiah","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nMaccabiah champ Berman talks Pearl's Auburn Israel tour, Smith in NBA, being Jewish in Alabama - Sports Rabbi<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/en\/maccabiah-champ-berman-talks-pearls-auburns-israel-tour-smith-in-nba-being-jewish-in-alabama\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Maccabiah champ Berman talks Pearl's Auburn Israel tour, Smith in NBA, being Jewish in Alabama - Sports Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Auburn University Tigers are on a special tour of Israel thanks to head coach Bruce Pearl who wanted to make sure that his team got off to a good start ahead of the 2022\/2023 season both on and off of the court. 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