Yavneh defeated Hebrew Academy of Nassau County (HANC) 41-38 and then held off The Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy 37-30 in the third/fourth of five preliminary games at the The Joseph and Florence Weiner Memorial Tournament in Baltimore, Maryland Thursday. The Bulldogs season record now stands at 10-2.
Yavneh could have gone to the dentist Thursday. Instead, they played 56 minutes of New York East Coast basketball at a snail’s pace and lived to tell about it. In a match-up of the two top seeds, HANC vs Yavneh Part 1?? ended up being one for the ages. The game began with four consecutive turnover possessions that included a pair of travels on the wonderful lego block court, a shot clock violation, and a misfired pass by the two teams. Junior Noah Rubinstein’s tip follow finally got the scoring started with 4:11 to play in the opening stanza. Moments later HANC was re-introduced to the new Steve Levine who made the score 4-0 with his patented steal for a layup. Everyone in the building was thankful for the shot clock in this tournament as HANC seemingly would have held for one shot per quarter without it. Another Levine steal/basket and a Rubinstein find of classmate Daniel Chernikov at the rim surged the Bulldogs out to an 8-3 lead but a 4-0 HANC end to the first period kept the game tight. Yavneh tried to make the game transition oriented but missed layups halted the pace and slowed the game to the liking of HANC. The lead changed hands a couple times but after Chernikov finished for a 10-9 Yavneh lead the tide turned slowly but surely. An 11-3 end to the first half for HANC was a slow motion microcosm of all the Bulldogs’ problems over the season’s first 10 games. Their half-court defense yielded drives to the basket, opponent misses were secured for second and third chance opportunities, and inefficiency at the offensive end created momentum for HANC and frustration for the Bulldogs. The lead for HANC swelled to 20-13 at halftime and the lead might have well been 25 at the pace this game was being played at. From nearly 40 forced turnovers a day ago to just 4 in a half, Yavneh was not playing their game. Eerily similar to the Ramaz match-ups in Baltimore a year ago, the lead continued to rise as the team continued to drift away. With 5:29 to play in the third quarter the lead was 23-13 and the game was in dire straights. Out of nowhere, however, the Bulldogs made the most crucial run of their season. Sophomore Griffin Levine, who had been fighting with the floor most of the game until this point, made a harmless rumble to the basket from the free throw line to make the score 23-15. But when Chernikov found Steve Levine for a wing triple to cut the lead to just 5 points in a flash, HANC sensed trouble was on the way. Jonathan Ochstein forced a critical 5 seconds closely guarded turnover and Griffin Levine channeled his exuberance in the form of a back-down fade-away three point play to suddenly trim the deficit to just 23-21. The 8 quick points in 1:28 were shocking but less than a minute later the Bulldogs actually claimed the lead on a Steve Levine three ball to extend the run to 11-0. Griffin Levine started and ended the run with a tip-in to make the score 26-23 Yavneh. HANC was able to regroup with the final 3 points of the period to tie the game at 26-26 heading to the final period but the 13-0 explosion had done major damage to the crawling game HANC had signed up for. Steve Levine once again was feeling it to start the fourth quarter as he quickly put the Bulldogs back in front with a corner triple. Chernikov kept the three point lead in tact off a Rubinstein theft for 31-28 with 5:21 to play but HANC scored 4 straight points to reclaim the lead. In every Baltimore tournament game Rubinstein finished a lefty layup while being fouled and this was no time to break tradition. A HANC free throw left the game deadlocked at 33-33 with 1:43 to go when the game turned flat out strange. Back to back to back turnovers for the two teams came at the worst possible times and in the oddest of circumstances. HANC threw a ball away, the Bulldogs mishandled the ball like they had feet stuck in quicksand, and then the pivotal HANC giveaway came just beyond half-court with the closest defender over 8 feet away as they fell victim to a lego dead-spot on the court. The last turnover was straight out of a haunted house mini series in late October and paved the way for Yavneh to deliver big shots in the Charm City. Steve Levine set up Rubinstein for a finally dead-eye three pointer that splashed through almost perfectly for the 36-33 advantage. After HANC trimmed the lead to a single point, the Bulldogs had an 8 second differential between shot and game clock with time running out. Sophomore Micah Romaner made a brilliant play and the extra pass to free Steve Levine for a one-leg up moon shot triple in what is probably the biggest shot in the Senior Captain’s career. The 8 seconds remaining felt and probably were much longer than that and HANC diced that 39-35 lead to a single point once again with a three of their own. With too many fouls to give, HANC needed a Bulldog mistake to steal the game with what the scoreboard said was 3 seconds left. Jonathan Ochstein threw a perfect deep pass right on target and Rubinstein salted the game away with a pair of free throws that somehow were meant to be shot for the 41-38 final. Steve Levine and HANC’s Yonatan Djourabchi (no relation to NBA star Kelenna Azubuike) shared game-high honors with 15 points apiece. Noah Rubinstein added 11 points while Griffin Levine and Daniel Chernikov combined for the other 15 all-important points.
The Kushner game did not have the intensity of the HANC war and that alone translated to a dangerous situation coming off the huge win. The first 8 Yavneh points of the game belonged to Junior Daniel Chernikov as it looked like Kushner could not handle him in the paint. A big Noah Rubinstein charge taken and a Griffin Levine center cut layup contributed to a 10-2 Bulldogs lead after one period of play. The Levines took over to start the second quarter with Steve continuing to drain outside jumpers with another three ball and then he found Griffin for an inbounds finish for a 15-8 advantage. Steve Levine’s pull-up jumper and yet another wing triple ended the half 20-12 in seemingly total control. Once again the Bulldogs had difficulty forcing turnovers and could not get to the free throw line in the first half at all. Jonathan Ochstein made a great baseline drive to find Rubinstein at the rim to extend to a 22-12 lead and Micah Romaner waited for an eternity as Kushner defenders breezed by him before a commanding finish that pushed the lead out to 29-15. Kushner fought back behind three pointers rolling around the rim and in, as well as taking advantage of Bulldog foul trouble. The most key of those issues was Chernikov, who was called for a buffet of different types of foul violations (most very questionable) which took away Kushner’s toughest matchup problem. A 12-2 run for Kushner behind a variety of Sam Raab dribble drive finishes made the lead a very tenuous 31-27 with 3:02 to play. One more Steve to Griffin Levine inbounds special popped the lead back to 6 points and was just enough to hold off Kushner who was basically done scoring. Steve Levine led the way with 10 points while the Bulldogs got balanced 8 point efforts from Daniel Chernikov (1st quarter), Griffin Levine, and Noah Rubinstein all with 8 points.
Yavneh (10-2) scored 41 and 37 points and still managed to win both grinding games to improve to a perfect 4-0 in the tournament. Surviving that combined labyrinth along with a couple external breaks has secured the Bulldogs a #1 seed in the tournament heading into Friday afternoon’s semifinal round. With still much to be determined, Yavneh seems poised to get back to the Finals for the second time in three years for a chance to avenge their gut-wrenching overtime defeat from 2013. Will the Bulldogs take care of business Friday and put themselves back in the championship game? Does this team have the mettle to persevere through another 1-2 games at a pace unlike their preference? Can they finally make one of these teams play their pace? And most importantly, will this team be the one to finally win a tournament of national consequence and put themselves on the map for 2015-16?
ONLY TIME WILL TELL!!!
The Kennel Report, now in its twelfth season, is written by…
Zack Pollack M&M
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