Two games into the U18 European Championship, Israel's youth national team is unbeaten, unshaken and playing the kind of basketball that has people around the program reaching for superlatives.
Israel opened the tournament in Trento, Italy on Saturday with an overtime thriller against Greece, coming back from nine points down inside the final 90 seconds of regulation to win 93-84. A day later they beat France 91-77, pulling away with a 12-0 run in the third quarter to seal a 2-0 start in Group A.
The headline act has been David Musis, the 18-year-old, 2.10-metre center who has committed to Florida Atlantic. Through two games he is averaging 25.5 points, 13.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks a game, shooting well from outside for a player his size. Against Greece alone he had 26 points, 19 rebounds, four three-pointers and three blocks.
Musis arrives at the tournament off a domestic season in which he was named MVP of Israel's youth league, and Sport5's coverage from Trento has carried the reaction of scouts and observers who say they cannot recall an Israeli youth team with this combination of size, skill and athleticism.
He has not carried the team alone. Guard Aviv Aronov has been the tournament's leading scorer through two rounds, averaging 30.5 points and 4.5 assists — he scored 30 points with six assists in the win over Greece and added 28 in the France game. Lior Hershko has also stood out, leading the squad with three steals a game.
The Greece game was as dramatic as the U18 championship has produced this year. Israel trailed by nine with a minute and a half left in regulation before clawing back to force overtime, then closing out the extra period to seal the win — 93-84 on the scoreboard, but a far tighter story than that margin suggests.
Aronov described it as an emotional occasion off the court as well as on it. "The sweetest victory there is. We are a generation with very strong character," he said afterward, according to Walla Sport. He added that the team had to deal with a hostile atmosphere before tip-off — "there was a huge protest against Israel with flags and horns, but the guys and I gave everything for the country's sake" — before praising his teammates for not letting the noise affect them.
Head coach Nadav Zilberstein struck a measured tone despite the dramatic finish, noting the number of momentum swings in the game and the pressure on his young players. "This championship is behind us now," he said of the Greece result. "Tomorrow we face the French. Hopefully we'll improve in what we need to improve."
Israel duly delivered against France, controlling the third quarter to turn a tight contest into a comfortable win and move to 2-0 in Group A, alongside Austria and Greece as the teams still involved in a four-team pool completed by France.
The team's next group game is against Austria, with a place in the knockout rounds of the tournament — which runs across Trento and Rovereto through August 2 — very much within reach after the strong start.
For a country whose senior men's team has long punched above its population in European basketball, a youth group generating this level of buzz two games into a continental championship is being read in Israeli basketball circles as a genuine signal for the sport's pipeline over the next several years.
