On Sunday, March 26th, the Valley Torah Wolfpack will play against the YULA Panthers for a spot in the Tier I Championship game on Monday. Valley Torah, the defending champs, enter the game as heavy favorites. Johny Dan and Noam Mayouhas are arguably the two best players in all of Sarachek. YULA has their hands full in this one, but are coached extremely well and are never going to go down without a good fight.
The Wolfpack entered the tournament as favorites, despite receiving the number 2 seed. Dan was last year's tournament MVP and hasn’t disappointed one bit so far in this year’s tourney. In the first game, he put up a subpar, for his standards, statline with just 10 points and 11 boards. He followed that up with a monstrous game against Katz in which he scored 42 points and snagged 13 rebounds. His partner in crime, Mayouhas has been electric as well. He’s averaging 18 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists for the tournament. The only knock on this Wolfpack team is their depth. Practically no one else on the team scores with consistency. As the opponents get increasingly tougher, they are going to need those guys to hit open shots.
The Panthers are coming off a big upset win over the 3 seeded North Shore. This team doesn’t have any specific players who stand out on the court or in the box score, but they compete hard and play a seemingly smarter game than their opponents every time out there. They have three guys averaging double digit points in Alex Gabbay, Judah Robin and Yishai Rosenblatt. They have struggled shooting from behind the arc so far in the tournament, something that needs to be fixed to upset Valley Torah. Expect YULA to come out with a good game plan to slow down Dan and Mayouhas and make this a close game.
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