AN UNORTHODOX SUCCESS STORY
For Yeshiva, biggest challenge to 35-game streak has been COVID
Ryan Turell always understood why he didn’t get chosen for the pick-up games. Then, soon enough, he would take glee in deflating the stereotype. “I used to walk in open gyms with a yarmulke on and never get picked up,” he said. “And then finally when it’s my turn to run the court with my buddies — all with yarmulkes on — everybody watching us was like, ‘Who are these guys?’”
Turell and his teammates at D-III Yeshiva University, the Orthodox Jewish institution in Washington Heights, are the hottest squad in men’s college basketball, winners of 35 consecutive games and eager for more victories, despite layers of COVID-related obstacles. Across the NCAA’s top three divisions, no men’s program currently holds a winning streak as long as the Maccabees.
It’s an unbeaten stretch now spanning two seasons, yet without the reward of an NCAA tournament, which has been canceled in D-III for a second straight year. The players have endured their own COVID infections, a wildly unpredictable schedule with practice restrictions, and a grueling dual curriculum of religion and academics. They never practice or play games during Sabbath.
There’s also an obligation to a global community, which is underscored by the coverage of the team in publications such as the Jerusalem Post and The Times of Israel.
“We know every time we step on that court we’re representing the Jewish community, we’re representing Jewish people,” said Turell, a junior guard and All-American selection. “And we want to lead by examples. We want to show the world that Jews can play basketball, too.”
The Maccabees haven’t lost since November 2019, while posting the third-longest win streak in D-III history. SUNY Potsdam holds the all-time record with 60 straight victories, from 1985 to 1987.
“We weren’t thinking about it for a while,” coach Elliot Steinmetz said, of the streak. “If there was an NCAA tournament or a conference tournament this year, we probably still wouldn’t be. But this streak kind of gives the guys something to keep playing for.”
Last season, prior to the COVID shutdowns, the Yeshiva Show packed the small gym on the Washington Heights campus, becoming a party of pride.
Assistant coach Michael Sweetney was impressed by the atmosphere, which is validating praise coming from a man who played college ball at Georgetown and was a Knicks lottery draft pick in 2003.
“It was unbelievable,” Sweetney said, of the pre-virus crowd. “You walk in the gym and it’s pretty much no breathing room. Standing room only. People were standing the whole games. People from the Jewish community were coming to support, but also people from Washington Heights, which was cool to see.”
Sweetney joined the staff last season on the recommendation of Tamir Goodman, who Sports Illustrated labeled in 1999 as “The Jewish Jordan.” Injuries sabotaged Goodman’s career, but he kept in close contact with Sweetney — a fellow Maryland native — and they linked up at a basketball camp in Israel.
“Obviously in the NBA and Division I, you have a lot of individual motives a lot of the time,” Sweetney said. “Not to say it’s not team basketball, but there’s a lot of stuff that goes with it. Whereas here, it’s just a great culture to be around.”
When Sweetney arrived in Washington Heights, Steinmetz had already established the program as a Skyline Conference contender on the rise. The team soared to a new level in the 201920 season, with the Maccabees capturing 29 straight victories heading into the D-III tournament with a 29-1 record.
The streak was facing its most daunting task, a Sweet 16 matchup against No. 3-nationally ranked Randolph-Macon, when the tournament was canceled March 13, two days after Rudy Gobert’s seismic positive test. Yeshiva players were on the team bus when the cancellation became official, just 10 minutes away from their destination in Virginia.
“At the time, I thought it stinks but at least there’s next year,” forward Gabriel Leifer said.
The next season hasn’t been as seamless or rewarding as Leifer hoped. COVID-19 again ravaged the country and New York this winter, prompting mass opt-outs from programs. The D-I and D-II NCAA tournaments were scheduled, but D-III championships were eliminated across all winter sports “due to low participation numbers among member schools.”
Yeshiva was still determined to hold a season, but COVID cases among players loomed as an impediment. Nearly half the roster caught the virus before Leifer suggested a new strategy: the players would practice in pods and split into two groups: those who already had COVID-19 and those who hadn’t. That way, according to Leifer, the inevitable positive test wouldn’t force the entire roster quarantine, only one pod.
Scientifically speaking, the antibody pod was relatively safe from re-infection and quarantining, thereby ensuring a roster would always be available to play in games. It helped that four of the five starters already recovered from COVID-19.
“Thankfully nobody got sick after we started the pods,” Leifer
said. “We did that after realizing it’s basically impossible to beat the statistics. We would just test and we would literally just cross our fingers. One guy would test positive and it would knock out the whole team.”
The setup sacrificed team chemistry and 5-on-5 scrimmages for game availability. But there’s been another conundrum: finding opponents and games that could fit into the players’ intense schedule.
Yeshiva’s basketball practice starts at about 6:15 a.m.
Prayer follows, not long after the shower, and then the students begin the Judaic program, studying the Talmud, the laws of Judaism. After a lunch break, academic classes fill the schedule until about 5:30 p.m.
Those are the easy days. “On Tuesday’s, for instance, I have class until 9:30 p.m.,” said Leifer, an accounting and management major.
“Practice, Hebrew classes, and then studying all day,” added Turell, a marketing major.
The game schedule isn’t conducive to planning because it doesn’t really exist. With no conference play and a limited number of D-III teams, Steinmetz said he’s making daily phone calls to find opponents.
The Maccabees only started playing Feb. 13 and managed six games heading into their Monday matchup against Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken.
“We literally could wake up one day and get a text we have a game today or we have a game tomorrow,” Leifer said.
The wildest commute so far has been to Rochester, when the Yeshiva players woke up at 5:30 a.m. for a COVID test, drove five hours, won by seven points, and got home early the next morning at 2:30 a.m. More recently, they swept Jim Calhoun’s team, St. Joseph of Connecticut, in a homeaway series.
Turell is the star, the First Team All-American and fastest player in school history to reach 1,000 points. He was recruited from California and hopes to play professionally in Israel after graduation.
“He’s probably, in my biased opinion, the best player in Division III basketball,” Steinmetz said.
Leifer, a senior forward, is the local product from Long Island who led the country in triple-doubles as a Fourth Team All-American last season. The Maccabees (6-0) are ranked fourth in the country and hoping against probability that all this winning results in a title of some sort.
“It’s highly unlikely, but possible, somebody puts together a four-team tournament,” Leifer said. “We want to set ourselves up for any possible opportunity.”
In the meantime, all they can do is win. And that’s all they’ve been doing for the last 15 months.