Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Yeshiva U Basketball Team Will Play In March Madness For The First Time Ever

(JTA) — The Yeshiva University men’s basketball team has earned its first berth in the NCAA Division III basketball tournament in program history.

The Maccabees on Sunday defeated Purchase College, 87-81, to win the Skyline Conference championship and earned automatic qualification into the tournament.

“There is nothing much to say. We are champs,” Yeshiva University head coach Elliot Steinmetz said in an interview posted on the Maccabees website. “These kids worked hard, stayed the course through everything all season, and now we are champs forever. What a moment!”

Yeshiva University Athletic Director Joe Bednarsh said that people from all over the world have been following the team and its run to the championship.

“People have been reaching out to me about this team, from Thailand, South Africa, Argentina, Israel, England, and more,” Bednarsh said. “The Maccabees are truly the pride of the Jewish people.”

The bracket for the NCAA tournament will be announced on Monday afternoon. YU will be competing in the opening round of the popular tournament next weekend.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version