Israeli U-20 basketball team defeats Belgium at Euro semifinal, clearing path to gold

The Israeli U-20 national basketball team beat Belgium 67-46 in the semifinals of the European Championship on Saturday, paving the way to a possible gold medal.

Israel will now face off against France on Sunday in the final match of the tournament, hosted in Greece.

Daniel Wolf was Israel’s highest scorer of the match with 17 points. Besides Wolf, Noam Yaacov scored 11 points, while Yuval Levin and Ron Zipper had 10 points each.

In the previous quarterfinal round, Israel beat Germany 75-64.

The U-20 team, led by coach Elad Hasin, will be making its sixth-ever trip to the final stage of the competition.

Last year, the national team finished in fourth place after having won the competition in 2019 and 2018 with rosters led by current NBA power forward Deni Avdija of the Washington Wizards and Euroleague guard Yam Madar, who recently signed with Turkish side Fenerbahçe Beko.

France has won the tournament once, in 2010.

While the Israeli U-20 national team’s success in basketball is not unprecedented, it coincides with last month’s surprising results by the U-20 Israeli national soccer team that finished third in the U-20 World Cup, and the Under-21 team’s run to this month’s semifinals of the European Championship.