In June, Yonah Singer was named Coach of the Year by Jewish Hoops America. But the head boys’ basketball coach at Berman Hebrew Academy in Rockville took no credit for himself. Instead, he gave it all to his players.
“The people that pick this award are not in our practices. They don’t know if I can coach or not,” Singer said in early July. “This really is a program award.”
Indeed, it is: In 2024–25, Berman enjoyed the best season in program history. The Cougars finished 33-10, won their first conference title in 20 years and reached the semifinals at Yeshiva University’s Sarachek Tournament for the first time.
On paper, of course Berman enjoyed a banner campaign: It had the best player in program history, 2,500-point scorer Alex August, a scorer with Luka Doncic-like gravity on the court, nearly at the peak of his powers. A junior this past year, August averaged 22.8 points per game and hit the 2,000-career-point milestone in February.
But on the court, the story was more complicated. August was August. As Singer described it, the scorer opened the floor for everybody else, giving them more space to operate and easier shots to attempt.
At the same time, Berman lost its second-best player, point guard Gabey Margulies, in December to a torn ACL.
“He was by far our second-best player,” Singer said.
After that, “Everybody stepped up in some way,” the coach said.
In particular, two upperclassmen role players, point guard Eli Teitelbaum and forward Itai Rozmaryn, evolved into standouts. Teitelbaum stepped into the point guard role with Margulies out, and Rozmaryn became the aggressive rebounder that the team needed. He also grew into an accurate outside shooter who could help August stretch the floor.
“Alex is such a talent. He was always going to get his,” said Singer. “It was really just a matter of where are we going get other production from?”
Berman answered that question. But perhaps most importantly, the Cougars, including August, didn’t care. They were a group of friends who had been playing together for years and just wanted to win, according to their coach.
“These guys were all like best friends,” said Singer. “There wasn’t in-fighting about who was taking the shots.”
Singer was also quick to credit not only his current players but also his previous players who helped build the program. The 2001 Berman graduate took over as boys’ basketball coach in 2016 and, at the time, the Cougars were not in the conversation among the nation’s best Jewish teams.
To get here, Berman had to establish a culture. Singer said his past players showed up early, watched film and practiced in their free time. There was a group of teenagers from the coach’s early years who made a conscious decision to try to build up Berman basketball in this way. Current Yeshiva University player Asher Falk, Coby Melkin, Josh Levieddin, Ezra Beletsky and others “went to work every single day,” Singer said.
“Even if we weren’t winning championships, these guys set the culture and tone for the next six years,” the coach said.
It was Singer, though, who oversaw all of this. While he won’t acknowledge much more than that bare fact, his players are willing to do it for him.
Rozmaryn said the coach puts “a crazy amount of time in.” But perhaps the coach’s best quality, according to his forward, is his ability to adapt to his players. Each year, he shows up to practice with a new playbook based on the roster he sees in front him.
This past year, after Margulies went down, it was Singer who pushed Rozmaryn, Teitelbaum and others to level up.
Before he got injured, Margulies often matched up with the opponent’s top creator. He was a big guard who liked to apply pressure and then ease off to force the scorer to beat him over a full possession.
Noah Lichtman, the former sixth man who replaced Margulies in that role, preferred to play aggressive, force turnovers and run. So, the Cougars ran more.
“We’d play our best if we sped up the game,” said Rozmaryn.
The forward also said his coach constantly pushed him in practice to get shots up.
“He’d say, ‘You have to learn to take shots for yourself,’” Rozmaryn recalled.
