Yeshiva University's 50-game win streak ends

We could begin with the end of the 50-game winning streak, or that No. 1-ranked Yeshiva University was thoroughly outplayed in the first half of its Dec. 30 contest against No. 4 Illinois Wesleyan, or that, sooner or later, the Maccabees were going to lose — or the philosophy that it’s better to drop a game in December than in the conference playoffs and the Division III tournament.

Better to begin with a break in the schedule for now No. 5 Y.U., with last Sunday’s home game against No. 17 Williams College postponed because of Covid-19 protocols at the Massachusetts school. With no other games on tap and the Skyline Conference not restarting for Y.U. until Jan. 26, the Maccabees have nearly four weeks to recharge.

Yeshiva (14-1) lost to the now No. 3 Titans (9-2), from Bloomington, Ill., 73-59, Y.U.’s first defeat since a 72-60 loss to Occidental College on Nov. 9, 2019. The 50-game winning streak was the second-longest in Division III men’s basketball history, bested only by SUNY Potsdam’s 60 consecutive wins from 1985 to 1987.

“The idea of this game, from the beginning, as much as it was hyped up and it was such a big game, was for us to be in a position to be better for March, and I think that did that for us,” Maccabees head coach Elliot Steinmetz said. “It exposed certain things, and put us in a position where we’ll be better going forward.” The D3 tournament is played in March.

Illinois Wesleyan began the game like a team on a mission. The Titans passing was crisper, the shooting more accurate and the players’ physicality did not allow the Maccabees to find their groove in the team’s typical fluid-motion offense.

“I just think we didn’t move the way were supposed to move, and … we allowed them to beat us to spots, said Steinmetz, a Woodmere resident. “Instead of us kind of turning and moving out of those spots, we tried to fight for those spots, which is just not the way we play.”

Despite a very vocal crowd at the Max Stern Athletic Center, Yeshiva fell behind 22-10 with 13:25 remaining in the first half and never recovered.

“You move on and just grow from it,” said forward Gabriel Leifer, a Lawrence native, who played his high school ball at Davis Renov Stahler Yeshiva High School for Boys in Woodmere. “We weren’t going to win 80 games in a row. This could be better than if we beat them, because we didn’t play well. So if we end up winning tonight, all you would have seen is a win, but we just have to get better.”

Moving on and improving became the Maccabee mantra. “It’s what everybody talked about,” Steinmetz said. “We didn’t struggle much through the first half of the season, and tonight we struggled, put ourselves in a hole a little bit. … We started to execute a little more of what we wanted to do in the second half, but it was too little, too late at that point, and a team like this that executes is a team we get to learn from.”

Leifer, a graduate student who is also working for the accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers, started the season slowly, as his academic and professional scheduled cut into practice attendance. “It’s definitely tiring,” he said. “I try my best to get to as many practices I can. Unfortunately, I’m not able to be at every practice due to my schedule. So in the beginning my games were like practices. It’s starting to come a little more, but we’re just playing good basketball. My assists went up, my points went down, but we’re winning — we lost one game.”

One bright spot was senior guard Ryan Turell, who scoring a game-high 22 points, which pushed him 4 points ahead of Aval Hod, class of 1989, for third place on Y.U.s all-time scoring list, with 1,811 career points.

In spite of the loss and the end of the winning streak, senior forward Alon Jakubowitz, who’s also from Woodmere and also played his high school ball at DRS, said the team’s goal remains the same: to win a national title.

“Giving [the streak] to the fans, everyone’s reaction, the hype around the winning, the support, and being able to share it with the Jewish community and students at Yeshiva,” Jakubowitz said, was his favorite part of the winning streak. He called his time on the team “[a] really, really special experience. It’s been an amazing experience. I would not have passed it up for anything. I never expected this experience.”