NEW YORK (JTA) — After a promising season marked by a record-breaking winning streak, the Yeshiva University men’s basketball team has been eliminated from the NCAA Division III tournament.
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The N0. 19 ranked Maccabees (25-4) lost 63-59 to No. 10 Johns Hopkins (23-3) on Friday, March 4, failing to complete a comeback in the game’s final minutes.
Trailing by eight points with 1:27 left to play, Y.U. star Ryan Turell exploded for six points in 47 seconds — nailing a trio of free throws and a three-pointer. Despite his heroic effort, the nation’s top scorer missed a potential game-tying shot with 15 seconds to go.
The Blue Jays then hit a pair of free throws to secure the victory, knocking Yeshiva out of the tournament in the first round. Turell led all players with 28 points in what was likely the senior’s last game for the Maccabees.
“This team changed the world,” Yeshiva University head coach Elliot Steinmetz said after the loss. “I am very proud of them.”
Though the Maccabees’ March Madness hopes were dashed, the team put together an impressive season that garnered national attention. Y.U. won its second consecutive Skyline Conference Championship, earned a No. 1 national DIII ranking and enjoyed a 50-game winning streak that extended back to 2019. Illinois Wesleyan University snapped the streak — at the time, the longest active winning streak in American college basketball — Dec. 30.
The team’s successful run galvanized the Washington Heights campus — and Jewish sports fans around the country — as many students and fans grew accustomed to winning.
“Within these two or three blocks of the Heights, I think it’s very special,” Elazar Abrahams, Y.U.’s student council president, told The New York Jewish Week in December. “Jews all over the country feel represented.”
The 2022-2023 season begins in November.
For all those rabbonim disparaging kids for playing basketball rather than making siyumim or for not following the Torah way and participating in organized sports, I ask you if posting comments on the internet is a better use of one’s time.
The game was Fri, today is Tues. it’s no longer news
Why would any yid participate in an activity which consists of a dozen boheimos leaping up in the air at the same time, to see which one will be first to catch the ball? And spend an inordinate amount of time perfecting himself in an activity which consists of a dozen boheimos leaping up in the air at the same time, to see which one will be first to catch the ball?
Worst of all, why would any yid watch such activity?
Hopefully the players and their fans will learn the proper lesson(s) from this loss, as well as from the recent end of their winning streak.
That investing so much money, meaning, effort, and emotion into sports competitions and teams is not in accordance with Torah Judaism.
Physical health and fitness is important to us, but following foreign ways in placing major emphasis on sports like this is not our way.
Did they also make a Siyum on Shas? Rambam? Yerushalmi?
Good to hear about the opposite of the macabees my rebbe said better to go to CUNY 10 times than once in this citadel of Zionism