As junior captain Cyrus Blumenthal sank a three in the three-point contest, his teammates cheered loudly on the side. Even though the CESJDS Lions did not win the official tournament, they were excited that JDS could win one aspect of the Memphis Yeshiva Invitational Tournament. Blumenthal was named an all-star and scored a total of 74 points total throughout the tournament.
From Nov. 14-17, JDS’s boys varsity basketball team attended the Memphis Yeshiva International tournament where they competed against 15 other Yeshivas and Jewish day schools from across the country. JDS lost their first two games but won their next two for a record of 2-2.
“The first couple games were a little choppier,” sophomore Dylan Shank said. “But it’s a new young team and we are all getting used to each other and the new style of play. I think as the tournament went on we were able to figure out how to play as a team.”
During their trip, the team stayed at the Hampton Inn and Suites East Memphis and spent most of their downtime at team meetings. In these meetings, the Lions watched film of their team as well as their opponents playing in games, and discussed different strategies.
JDS placed 13th overall and 5th in the tier two bracket, losing their opening game to the Katz Yeshiva High School of South Florida 46-38 after trailing the whole game, and then losing 54-46 the next day in a back and forth battle with the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway Hawks.
“I think the fact that we had those two losses, it showed them that we weren’t as good as we felt we were, and that they needed to learn how to win,” head boys varsity basketball coach Ryan Eskow said. “ … For the first time this year I really raised my voice with them, and I challenged them and from that moment on they were able to respond and become that team that we needed to be to run off two straight wins.”
As a part of the trip, the Lions spent a Shabbat in Memphis and were hosted by two Memphis families for Friday night dinner. During Shabbat, the tournament brought in an Orthodox Jewish hypnotist to entertain the players. They also listened to speaker Yehuda Pryce, a Jewish convert who was imprisoned for gang violence and discovered Judaism while incarcerated.
JDS played their third game after Shabbat ended, at 11:45 pm, and blew out Maimonides 74-48 in a game where every player on the Lions team contributed. The Lions won their final game against the Cooper Mac’s 50-33.
“I think it’s good that we had a pre-season tournament because it showed us what we need to do for the rest of the year,” Blumenthal said. “Me personally, I’m in a much bigger role than I was [in past years] because we lost a lot of seniors last year, so I had to become the main scorer and leader.”
Eskow is proud of how the team played as a whole, and thinks that the team had to overcome the mental block of losing the first two games in a row. In the upcoming season Eskow said that the team needs to work on consistency on both offense and defense.
“This is probably one of the greatest groups of guys I’ve ever been around as a coach, just in terms of how they mesh together and how much they love each other and care about each other,” Eskow said.
