Israel Basketball Squad Announced for August World Cup Qualifiers Without Avdija and Saraf

The Israel national basketball team is set to begin preparations on August 16 for their upcoming World Cup qualifying matches. Head coaches Tamir Blatt and Yam Madar have named a 16-player roster, from which 14 will travel to Georgia for a warm-up game on August 23. Following this, the team will face Poland in Latvia on August 27 and then play an away game against Latvia on August 30.

Rafi Menco returns to the squad for the first time since the European Championship, while Tomer Ginat's participation remains uncertain due to injury; his status will be evaluated at the start of training. Notably absent are key players Deni Avdija and Ben Saraf, whose clubs did not approve their participation for this window. Similarly, Noam Yaakov and Alon Michaeli are also unavailable. Additionally, Nimrod Levi, Joaquin Schokman, Gur Lavi, and Yuval Zosman have not fully recovered and will not participate.

The full roster includes Yam Madar, Tamir Blatt, Kadin Carrington, Eitan Burg, Yair Kravitz, Guy Peltin, Adam Ariel, Rafi Menco, Netanel Artzi, Lior Karera, Roman Sorkin, Tomer Ginat, Yotam Hanochi, Eli Dolinsky, Idan Zalmanson, and Itay Segev. The team aims to build cohesion ahead of the critical qualifiers in late August.