Roy Itcovichi was asleep when the fear started, barely an hour away. Elliot Steinmetz was together with his daughter in Jerusalem, the place sirens screamed and rocket blasts reverberated.
Zevi Samet was on the telephone, his household inside a bomb shelter.
Tom Beza’s sister was readying for struggle, serving within the Israel Protection Forces. Adi Markovich’s pal was on the Nova music competition, included among the many 1,200-plus killed throughout Hamas’ assault on Oct. 7, 2023.
Two days later, the Yeshiva basketball workforce held its first apply of the season.
“There were conversations, like ‘Why are we doing this?’ ” recalled Steinmetz, the Eleventh-year head coach. “There was little or no curiosity in basketball. We have been taking part in as a result of we needed to play. … We had six [players] from Israel. We had three guys who served [in IDF] who referred to as up their items, who have been keen to return.
“The first meeting we had after Oct. 7, we said the only way this season makes sense is if we find a way to make it bigger than basketball.”
Celebrated in recent times for its unlikely rise — culminating in 2022 with a 50-game successful streak and the No. 1 rating in Division III — the feel-good story of the NCAA’s solely all-Jewish workforce took a painful and provoking flip through the 2023-24 season, captured within the documentary, “Rebound: A Year of Triumph and Tragedy at Yeshiva University Basketball,” which premieres Wednesday on Fox Nation.
“It was very hard mentally, but it was also our safe space,” mentioned Itcovichi, a junior guard. “We didn’t have to think of anything else. It could feel selfish, but it also made you really thankful and grateful for everything we had.”
Within the midst of their most making an attempt season — following the deadliest assault on the Jewish folks because the Holocaust — the Maccabees took an emotionally draining week-long journey to Israel — visiting with household, associates and troopers in hospitals.
They noticed the remnants of the competition bloodbath. They toured Kibbutz Be’eri, the village the place greater than 100 have been killed and dozens have been taken hostage.
Ofir Engel — a pal of Beza, the Yeshiva guard — joined the workforce on the tour, strolling previous the rubble of the abandoned neighborhood, recounting how he was kidnapped from the house of his girlfriend’s household.
“We were looking at bullet casings and grenade rings, you couldn’t imagine the amount of them outside residential homes,” Steinmetz mentioned. “It was very unnerving [in Israel]. You walk down the street at night, you’re a little bit nervous. We were constantly going back and forth into the stairwell which serves as the shelter of the apartment building, to the roof to watch the missile trails and the Iron Dome. You’re hearing sirens and there are explosions overhead, and you feel like you only see this in movies.”
Steinmetz had little interest in his workforce taking part in basketball on the journey.
Ultimately, he was persuaded to take part in an exhibition sport in opposition to an Israeli professional workforce, taking part in to an enthusiastic crowd that helped give higher that means to the Macs’ season.
“The players talked about feeling guilty: ‘Should I come back to my country? Should I serve in the IDF? Should we be playing basketball during wartime?’ ” mentioned the movie’s director, Pat Dimon. “Everyone was saying, ‘No. Some of the highlights of our day is streaming your games in the States. Your role is to be a beacon of light in a dark time.’ ”
The Macs returned to Manhattan and resumed video games on the Max Stern Athletic Middle, the place the Israeli flag hangs and its nationwide anthem soars.
It’s the place gamers went via warm-ups sporting T-shirts with the faces of hostages nonetheless in captivity.
It’s the place they positioned their telephones on the sideline throughout 6 a.m. practices, checking to see whether or not the world modified between dribbles.
“There are certain events where there is a before and an after and nothing is ever the same,” Steinmetz mentioned. “Oct. 7 is like that. The world goes on, but it’s a different world. … I’ll never look at a season the same again. It’ll never be just basketball. It’s gonna be about something bigger than the sport.”
