By Ari Plotkin
As the first round of March Madness began in earnest this week, several Jewish players are basking in the spotlight and hope to lead their teams to college basketball’s “Promised Land.”
Among them is the University of Michigan’s 7-foot star Danny Wolf. A 20-year-old Israeli-American, Wolf has been in the national spotlight since leading the Yale Bulldogs to an upset victory over Auburn in the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
This season, Wolf played basketball for the Michigan Wolverines and earned second-team All-Big Ten honors after averaging 13 points and 10 rebounds per game.
Also, Wolf helped lead Michigan to a Big Ten Tournament Championship and earned a nomination on the All-Tournament Team.
In 2023, Wolf represented Israel in the FIBA U20 European Basketball Championship in Greece and helped the team earn the silver medal. Wolf led the tournament with 12 rebounds per game, and put up a second-best 17.7 points per game.
Wolf is expected by many to be a first-round pick in this June’s NBA Draft.
Over on the women’s side of college basketball, there is Yarden Garzon, who plays for the no. 9-seeded Indiana Hoosiers and is their leading scorer, averaging 14.5 points per game.
Now in her junior year, Garzon, a native of the Israeli city of Ra’anana, has averaged double digit points in all three years she has spent with the Hoosiers.
Most recently, Garzon set the record for most three-pointers ever made by a Hoosiers women’s basketball player.
Garzon and the Hoosiers will face Utah today, Mar. 21.
Another Jewish women’s basketball star is Columbia University’s Riley Weiss. A sophomore, Weiss leads Columbia in scoring, averaging 17.1 points per game.
Weiss was also named a First Team-All Ivy League nominee this season due to her impressive statistics.
Outside of college basketball, Weiss helped lead Team USA to a gold medal at the Maccabiah Games in Israel in 2022.
In addition to the players, four Jewish coaches — Bruce Pearl, Jon Scheyer, Todd Golden and Lindsay Gottlieb — are in this year’s March Madness spotlight.
Ari Plotkin is a Jmore editorial staff intern.
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