After exorcising old demons, Zoosman and Israel have medals in mind

CHEMNITZ (FIBA U20 European Championship 2018) – One of the few players at the FIBA U20 European Championship 2018 to have stood on the podium in last year's event in Crete, Israel frontman Yovel Zoosman is laser-focused on replicating the success in Chemnitz.

Having already got some reps with the senior national team during the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 European Qualifiers and a full season of top-level club basketball, the 20-year-old is already putting his newly-gained experience to use.

"When I was a kid — like every kid who plays basketball in Israel — I wanted to be a part of the senior national team and when you finally do it, you feel great. You feel like you have accomplished something," Zoosman explained.

Yovel Zoosman made his national team debut with games against Estonia and Great Britain

"But we are now here in Chemnitz and we're trying to achieve something unique as well, trying to go as far as we can in the FIBA U20 European Championship."

Having begun the tournament with a last-second defeat against Germany on a Richard Freudenberg three-pointer, Israel bounced back with three consecutive wins in a row, finally laying some of their ghosts of the past to rest. 

About last night... #FIBAU20Europe @RichardFreudenb 🇩🇪 (📹 @DBB_Basketball) pic.twitter.com/jg0R15SqM1

— FIBA #Basketball (@FIBA) July 15, 2018

Indeed, the loss to the tournament hosts had opened up some old wounds for Zoosman and the Israel team, who went through a traumatic experience at the FIBA U18 European Championship 2016 of losing close games in every heart-breaking way imaginable.

"Two years ago in Turkey," Zoosman recalled. "The same team, the same players, we lost by a couple of points, by buzzer-beaters and in overtimes, game after game."

This time, instead of folding, Israel downed Romania 95-48 and pulled off an impressive 106-84 victory against the FIBA U20 European Championship title holders Greece and, seemingly, exorcised their demons for good.

Israel blew out the FIBA U20 European championship title holders Greece in the Group Phase

"We tried to keep our minds focused after that game [against Germany]. We came into the [next games] hungry from the first minute and tried to fight and be aggressive," the player, whom teammates call Zus, explained.

Having been the team's top scorer in the 2017 edition of the tournament with averages of 16.3 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.9 steals per game, Zoosman is once again in double-digit territory, while also dramatically increasing his assist numbers.

"I try to bring as much knowledge as I can to the other players, for them to understand what I want and for me to understand what they want," the player explained. "But in general, we are a team and it's not about one player or two players. We play five on five, not one on five."

The four FIBA U20 European Championship 2017 silver medalists back on the team this year: Michael  Moshkovitz, Yovel Zoosman, Gil Beni  and Miron Ruina

Israel progressed to the Quarter-Finals with a largely convincing 72-63 victory over Sweden and will face Spain, who upset Lithuania in the bracket, for the right to enter the medal round for the second year running.

"I don't know about particular goals. As far as we go, it will be great. We play together, we love to be with each other and we'll try to do something special and go as far as we can," offered a cautious Zoosman, doing his best not to put the cart before the horse.

"If it can be a medal, it would be great. If it could be a gold medal, it would be even greater, but we'll try to do our best." From Chania to Chemnitz, medaling twice in a row would be an extraordinary achievement for Zus and Co.

FIBA