On the way to the tournament's top five? The wonderful numbers of David Musis and Aviv Aronov
While the youth national team will try to secure the last ticket to the World Championship, its pair of stars continues to deliver outstanding individual performances. Here is the breakdown.
The Israeli youth national team lost to Slovenia, but the dream of qualifying for the World Championship remains alive: if the team wins its two remaining classification matches for 5th-8th places, it will secure a prestigious ticket to the championship to be held next summer.
Beyond the team goal, there is a personal one: David Musis and Aviv Aronov are in the midst of a wonderful tournament, establishing themselves as two of the greatest talents of their age group in Europe.
Aronov leads the scoring table with 24.4 points, while his teammate follows in second with 23.8. The Israeli guard also ranks first in free-throw percentage (88.9%), while adding 5.6 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game. He scored 30 points against Greece, 31 against France, 19 against Austria, 22 against Denmark, and 20 against Slovenia, having taken the most field goal attempts in the championship so far (18.8 per evening).
Musis, meanwhile, leads the efficiency rating column with 27.4 per game—a significant gap over second-ranked Ignas Stombergas of Lithuania (25.6)—and he has played more minutes than any other player (32.9 per game). The frontcourt player also leads the rebounds per game table (12.2), ranks ninth in field goal percentage (49.4%), sixth in free-throw percentage (82.1%), and seventh in three-point percentage (39.1%).
In every game of this championship, Musis has recorded at least 21 points and 8 rebounds: against Greece he shone with 26 and 19, against France he provided 25 and 8, against Austria 21 and 9, against Denmark 23 and 17, and against Slovenia 24 and 8.
Until the loss to Slovenia, both Musis and Aronov were in the race for the tournament MVP title, but it is likely that the quarterfinal elimination will prevent this. The only Israeli to receive this great honor was Ben Saraf in 2024, when Israel reached the semifinals and eventually finished fourth (also losing to Slovenia at the time).
We also note Amitai Azriel, who leads the championship in assist-to-turnover ratio with 4.3 assists for every turnover. In the overall assists table, he ranks third with 5.2 per game.
