YU Maccabees head to NCAA DIII men’s basketball tournament for first time since 2022
Yeshiva University clinched the conference title to earn an automatic spot in the NCAA DIII tournament

Zevi Samet is a star of the Yeshiva University Maccabees men’s basketball team. (Kodiak Creative/Jimmy Naprstek)
(JTA) — It’s another March Madness run for the Yeshiva University Maccabees, which clinched the Skyline Conference championship on Sunday night to head to the national men’s basketball tournament.
The 81-78 win against the Farmingdale State Rams means that the Orthodox university is returning to the NCAA Division III men’s basketball tournament for the first time since 2022. That year, the team fell in the first round of play to Johns Hopkins, following a season that notched a record 50-game winning streak, and captivated Jewish basketball fans.
Mayim Bialik, the Jewish actor, is producing a documentary about the 2022 team, whose star, Ryan Turell, now plays professional basketball in Israel after a stint in the NBA’s G League in Detroit.
The team’s current star is Zevi Samet, a junior from the heavily Orthodox town of Monsey, New York, who is also the Skyline Conference’s Player of the Year. Samet posted the game-winning three-pointer with just 16 seconds to spare on Sunday.
“Solid run… Onto the @ncaadiii tournament,” coach Elliot Steinmetz posted on Instagram on Sunday. “Thanks to those who have continued to support us.” He posted photographs showing the team wearing orange practice shirts in honor of the Bibas brothers killed in captivity in Gaza; fans holding Israeli flags in the stands; and a victory dinner at a kosher restaurant on Long Island.
The Maccabees have played in the NCAA tournament only twice before, making it to the third round in 2020 before play was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their first game in this year’s tournament will be Friday afternoon at Tufts University in Boston. The DIII men’s basketball tournament ends March 22 in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Correction: This story has been corrected to show that the NCAA DIII tournament ends, not begins, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It has also been updated with information about the Maccabees’ first-round game.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
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 polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture This Jewish New Yorker survived the Holocaust and the Hungarian Revolution, and is still helping others today
-
Fast Forward Trump says he and Netanyahu are ‘on the same side of every issue’ following talks on Iran, tariffs
-
Fast Forward California school board members accused of antisemitism during contentious meeting
-
Fast Forward Over 100 Chicago-area rabbis and cantors condemn Trump’s campus crackdown
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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 comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag 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 [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.