It’s a Thursday evening in early January and two basketball teams are warming up in a hockey gym in Cedarhurst. One team is from Brooklyn (Magen David Yeshivah) while the other has traveled from Miami (Jewish Culture High School). The stands aren’t full despite these two teams being ranked 14th and 10th respectively in the latest Jewish Hoops America National Top 25. In fact, one of the game’s spectators might be more interesting than the game on the floor.

Zac Agichtein sits with his teammates in the front row. Wearing their matching Atlanta Jewish Academy Jaguars sweatsuits, some people know to look for the 6’4” shooting guard while others walk right on by. AJA doesn’t get any votes in the national poll despite having a 7-4 record on the season against their competition in Georgia. They are playing better competition this year after being promoted to a higher league thanks to a hot streak at the end of last season that led them to the state tournament.

The only person who really knows how they might compare to the competition in this tournament is Agichtein himself. He plays against some of the better Jewish players from across the country during the summer months in various programs and camps. He says that his team can stack up with the teams from New York and New Jersey that play in the Metropolitan Yeshiva High School Athletic League.

He watches the first match-up with his teammates as they await their turn in the second time slot against the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County. HANC also receives no votes in the national poll and is 4-8 this season in conference play. The Hurricanes are known as a team with real spunk, but it’s tough to get wins in the Yeshiva League these days. Each grade at HANC is about the size of the whole high school at AJA, but Agichtein likes the fact that they are getting their easiest seeding round opponent on the first night. If the Jaguars can withstand the Hurricanes, maybe they can prove that their small school from down south is better than people think.

But not everything goes as planned.

The Scott Satran Memorial Tournament is a fixture of the calendar at the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway. This year’s contest brought 12 teams from across the country to compete in a grueling schedule from Thursday to Sunday night.

Nowadays, tournaments for Jewish high schoolers are everywhere. There are tournaments all over the country for both boys and girls, for basketball and softball, and even for both varsity and junior varsity. The small world of Jewish sports has never been bigger.

Things have changed over the decades when it comes to preparation for these events. While out of town players used to be a complete mystery, you can now watch many teams’ games live online throughout the season. There’s no such thing as a player coming into the gym with no scouting report. A coach might choose how much or how little to tell his team, but the information is out there if you want to go find it.

As the AJA vs. HANC game tips off, it’s clear that the HANC players know that they need to watch out for Agichtein. They force him into a couple of tough threes and he comes up empty on those attempts. Though he looks a little frustrated, Agichtein puts his head down and gets to the rim a few times. He scores 12 of his team’s 14 points in the first quarter, but AJA trails HANC 18-14 after a Yossi Davidovits three pointer at the buzzer.

In the second quarter, HANC starts to pull away as they start to pressure Agichtein even more. He gets seven more points (though still nothing from beyond the arc), but his team goes into the lockerroom down 48-27. While AJA is playing hard, HANC appears to have too many capable players for them to handle. The Hurricanes might be having trouble containing Agichtein, but they seem able to hold off the Jaguars as a team.

The third quarter ends with a score of 73-46 as HANC extends their lead. Agichtein has another 12-point quarter and he manages to hit a pair of triples along the way. But at this point the game is out of reach. Showing the tenacious demeanor he’s known for, Agichtein does his best to bring his team back. He scored 21 in the fourth before sitting down with a few minutes left to let the bench players get some runs. The final is 92-70, Agichtein with 52.

“All our coach told us was that we would probably win the game, but we had to watch out for the guy wearing  number 22,” said one HANC player after the game. “He was obviously a great player, but I think we did a good job.”

“I guess he probably had 30 [points],” another Hurricane said afterwards.

When told he had 52, they were astonished. They were even more surprised to learn that before the game, he averaged 37.3 points per game. That average is good enough for fourth best in the entire country according to MaxPreps.

That’s why there are college coaches sitting with his parents to watch the games this weekend.

On the other end of the spectrum from the Jaguars are the Cougars of Berman Hebrew Academy in Maryland. They came into the tournament ranked fifth in the national rankings. The expectations for the Cougars are much different.

“Everybody knows Berman,” said a player for HAFTR. “They play in a bunch of these tournaments and do pretty well. And everybody knows Alex August.”

August was last year’s JHA Underclassman of the Year. He averaged 21 points per game as a sophomore and joined the school’s 1,000 point club last year. His 52 points in a single game last season was the most by any player for a Jewish high school. This season, his average was 23.3 points heading into Satran, where he scored 154 points in Berman’s six games (an average of 25.7).

The Cougars just lost one of their best players for the season to an ACL tear, but still played pretty well throughout the Satran Tournament. This is the second of the three major tournaments that they will play in throughout the season, having already traveled to the Steve Glouberman Annual Basketball Tournament in Los Angeles in November and being slated to appear in the Red Sarachek Basketball Tournament at Yeshiva University in New York City in March.

Berman is almost certainly the only Jewish team leaving their metropolitan area three times this season and that isn’t a coincidence.

“These tournaments have become just as important to us as our conference at home,” revealed Yonah Singer, Berman’s athletic director and head basketball coach. “With some of the teams in our league being less competitive than previous years, the players look forward to these tournaments more than ever.”

But other out-of-town teams have the opposite point of view.

“[The Satran Tournament] is like a nice change of pace from our main goal,” Agichtein offered about the weekend. “But our eyes are on our league back home.”

Friday is a tough day at Satran. All teams play twice before shabbat comes in early and gives everyone a temporary rest.

AJA’s first game was against North Shore Hebrew Academy. So at nine in the morning, in a gym where the only seats are actually in a cafeteria that sits behind the baseline of one of the baskets, the two teams went at it.

Agichtein scored the first four points of the game and AJA was looking pretty good out of the gate. But the 22nd ranked Lions decided to lock the game down after that. They used a combination of full court press and double teaming Agichtein to finish the half with a score of 41-7.

After the pressure eased up on his teammates in the second half, Agichtein was able to finish with 36 points. The final score was 70-50.

“It’s tough sometimes for Zac,” relayed Lamont Watkins, coach of the Jaguars. “Even if his teammates aren’t really on his level, he’s still the best teammate he can be. He’s respectful, coachable, and smart. He’s a great kid on and off the floor.”

Unfortunately for Agichtein, off the floor was something he was going to have to deal with sooner than he would like.

In the second game of the day, AJA faced off against the host HAFTR Hawks. Agichtein injured his shooting hand in the beginning of the game, but decided to play through the pain. After being hit on his injured wrist while shooting in the third quarter, Agichtein left the game for good with a total of 14 points. The Hawks pulled away and dispatched the Jaguars easily without Agichtein on the court.

After getting an x-ray that was questionable for a fracture, Agichtein got a splint for his hand and did not play the rest of the tournament as a precaution.

One of the best aspects of tournaments like Satran is the bonding between the players. Not only do teammates get to spend time together, but teams get to spend time with other teams. With such a grueling schedule, shabbat is the one time where the players can just relax a little bit and hang out with each other.

Some might be going to a yeshiva in Israel together next year. Others might be old camp friends. There are even players who live in the same Jewish community as each other, but they haven’t really met because they go to different schools. Whatever the case may be, it strengthens community ties and makes for easier future games of “Jewish Geography.”

On Saturday night, the teams at Satran are seeded 1-12 based on their performance in the three seeding games they have played so far. Obviously, there are many teams with the same record as each other. These ties are broken using a system that awards points for winning quarters inside those three games. With a system like this, strength of schedule in your seeding games is very important.

This was a big deal for a team like HANC. Their draw was to play two of the three bottom teams in the field and they therefore had a 2-1 record. That led to them facing off against HAFTR in the number six vs. number seven match-up on Saturday night. The two cross-island rivals competed in what was surely the most intense and well-attended game of the entire tournament.

Lasting until almost midnight, the game went into overtime after Jacob Salem hit a three pointer in the corner with 12.9 seconds left to draw the Hawks even with the Hurricanes. But HANC proved too much in overtime and Nadiv Zahavi nailed two clutch free throws at the end to secure the 74-71 victory. As the win avenged an early season blowout loss, the HANC fans stormed HAFTR’s court and relegated the Hawks to the second tier of their own tournament.

Coming into this year, MDY had won the last six Satran titles. Their first game against JCHS was a nail-biter from start to finish. The conclusion was probably the top play of the tournament though. Josh Chabbott of MDY converted a baseline inbounds play with 0.4 seconds left in a tie game to beat the buzzer and win the game, 54-52.

The win was extremely important, because the format made everything easy from there until the championship. They faced two bottom teams for seeding, a qualifying match-up against AJA without Agichtein, and then a bye into the semifinals where they beat a Berman team on Sunday who had already played earlier that morning. This earned them a date with the fifth ranked Davis Renov Stahler Yeshiva High School for Boys.

DRS had to come back after being down 17 points to 11th ranked Hillel Yeshiva to win their first game. Then there was the Friday battle with Berman where both teams were tied at fifth in the national poll. DRS pulled away in that one and won their last seeding game easily. As the only other 3-0 team, they got a clear path just like MDY. A mismatch on Saturday night, a bye Sunday morning, and a Sunday afternoon rematch against Hillel when the Heat had already played that morning.

In the end, DRS prevailed over MDY for the championship by a score of 60-47. Tzvi Tsaidi had 22 points and was named Tournament MVP for the Wildcats, and MDY couldn’t make it seven straight Satran titles. The win also made DRS 4-0 this season against MDY. The Wildcats beat the Warriors once in the Magen David Preseason Tournament and twice in Yeshiva League regular season play.

Agichtein’s 52 might have been insignificant in the narrative of Satran 2025, but it might have been important to the colleges he’s looking at for the future. Berman may not have been able to roll into town and take home the title, but maybe August and his crew will figure out how to right the ship without their fallen teammate by the time Sarachek comes around in late March. HANC probably won’t have another win as big as their Saturday night win against HAFTR, but that game will stick in the memories of everyone who was there for years to come. And DRS likely has their sights set on titles bigger than Satran, but that doesn’t mean this wasn’t a great stepping stone for them as they look forward to the Yeshiva League playoffs and Sarachek.

Satran isn’t the biggest tournament, the most important, or the most glamorous. But it gives teams a chance in the middle of the season to hang out with each other, bank some memories, and, in a time when Jewish high school basketball has become bigger than ever, just have some fun.