Blue-and-white U20 hoopsters advance to Euro knockout round

The Israel Under-20 Men’s Basketball Team ended the group stage of the European Championship with a 2-1 record and will now prepare to face Greece on 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 the Czech Republic (82-74) and then Italy (90-72), but fell 73-61 to Germany 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 with 14.3 points and 8.3 boards and Eyal Harel has chipped in with 11 points a contest, Shachar Doron with 10 points and Yoav Berman with 9.7 points to round out the squad’s top five players.

Making up for previous losses

Greece enters the round-of-16 matchup with Israel sporting a 1-2 record, with a win over Serbia in the opening game followed by two losses to Poland and France.

The blue-and-white, which won the competition in 2018 and 2019, will look to do better than last year’s team, which made it to the finals before ultimately falling to France.