Israel's under-18 basketball team put together its best half of the summer on Sunday, overturning a tied game to beat France 91-77 in Trento and lock up first place in Group A at the FIBA U18 EuroBasket, with a game to spare.
The sides were level 39-39 at the break, but Israel took over after halftime behind Aviv Aronov, who finished with 31 points on 5-of-11 shooting from three-point range and six rebounds, and David Mozes, who added 25 points and eight rebounds. Rom Stoler and Omri Orland chipped in off the bench as the young Israelis pulled away.
It followed an opening comeback win over Greece, 93-84, meaning Nadav Zilberstein's squad arrived at the France game already unbeaten and left it with the group sealed before Monday's dead-rubber finale against Austria.
The result matters well beyond seeding. Sport5 notes that Israel now heads into the round of 16 as one of the tournament's form teams, with the winner of that game guaranteed a place in the quarterfinals — and, under the competition's structure, a share of the five World Cup berths reserved for the tournament's top finishers.
According to Sport5's reading of the bracket, Israel's likely round-of-16 opponent is Denmark, with a possible quarterfinal draw against one of Spain, Italy, Latvia, Germany, Slovenia, Lithuania or Bulgaria — a group that includes several of the continent's traditional basketball powers. Those matchups are not yet officially locked in and will depend on how the rest of Group A's rivals finish.
The stakes are real for a program still building its recent history. Israel finished fourth at the 2024 U18 EuroBasket in Tampere, Finland, agonisingly short of a medal, and there is a sense within Israeli basketball that this crop of players — many of whom have grown up together through the junior ranks — has the depth to go further.
A World Cup place would be a landmark on its own terms. Israel's under-19 team qualified for the FIBA U19 World Cup for the first time only last summer, reaching Lausanne, Switzerland, under coach Sharon Avrahami. The team went 2-5 — the best record any Israeli side has posted at that level — and beat the host nation, Switzerland, 79-68 in the placement game to finish seventh.
That achievement was treated as a breakthrough for Israeli youth basketball. A second consecutive World Cup call-up, this time for the current U18 group once they move up an age bracket, would suggest the progress is not a one-off but part of a broader shift in the pipeline feeding the senior national team.
For now, the more immediate task is Monday's meaningless finale against Austria before the knockout rounds begin in Trento and Rovereto later this week — the stage on which Israel's actual route to another World Cup will be decided.
