Israel defeated Cameroon 86-82 to advance to the quarterfinals of the Under-19 World Championship, where it will play Slovenia on Friday in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Omer Mayer helped mount a double-digit comeback while Yaron Goldman hit a huge three-pointer and closed out the game with a pair of free throws as the blue-and-white joined the top eight teams in the world.
This is Israel’s first time at the World Championship, and thus far, its success has led it to be one of the talks of the tournament. However, the blue-and-white had a rough start as Cameroon came out flying to begin the game and took a 45-38 advantage into halftime.
Mayer came out of the break on fire, while Alon Danieli and Ariel Sela also found the bottom of the basket to lead Israel into the final frame behind by just three (60-57).
At that point, Mayer took the team on his back while Danieli and Sahar helped Israel to the lead. However, Noe Bom, Amadou Seini, and Gedeon Basson responded to narrow the gap to just a single point, but Goldman drilled home a wide-open dagger triple and a pair of free throws as time wound down to salt away the huge comeback victory.
Mayer scored 33 points, Oren Sahar added 12 points, and Danieli put in 10 points in the win. Basson scored 25 points, Seini put in 18 points, and Wilf Kingue scored 10 points in the loss.
“Wow! We really just stayed in this game after going down by so much,” Israel head coach Sharon Avrahami exclaimed. “But these guys are just amazing, how they came back, it’s so exciting. You need to play the entire 40 minutes as you need the entire game to keep making adjustments. There was such an incredible battle, and our guys were just brilliant with how they stayed together. It’s fantastic, they are plain and simple winners.”
Avrahami also spoke about how Mayer led the team to the win.
“Omer is a superstar. He’s a huge winner but a humble leader. Last year it was Ben Saraf with us playing in this role, and this year it’s Mayer.”
Slovenia will pose a challenge to the blue-and-white
Up next is Slovenia, and Avrahami will make sure his squad is ready for the challenge.
“Slovenia is a great national team, and they were able to get past Argentina, who are terrific. We believe in ourselves, and we have an incredible locker room, but one that is so modest. Slovenia will be a tough opponent, but we have been playing them for a decade, and their style is very different from Cameroon's. We have a responsibility to our country, which we know is behind us. The battle we saw from the guys on the court is representative of our country.”
Mayer was also excited about the win.
“I don’t know what to say. I am very happy that we won, and we left everything on the court. We hoped that as many people as possible would be watching, and we wanted to make them happy. As for Slovenia, we are expecting a tough game. They have some good players, and they have good height. They are a well-trained team that knows how to play. But our job is very simple – we will come in and give everything we have, we will play our hearts out for the entire nation of Israel, and everything will turn out fine.”