Mensch Warmer

The annual Red Sarachek high school basketball tournament at Yeshiva University doesn't usually draw a lot of media attention. But reporters were out in force last weekend at YU's Washington Heights campus to cover the competition, which brings together 18 teams representing Jewish high schools from across the country. The reason: Tamir Goodman, or as his nickname would have it, the "Jewish Jordan."

Goodman, a gangly 6-3 junior for the Talmudical Academy of Baltimore who plays with a yarmulke on his head, has given a verbal commitment to play for the University of Maryland. In return, the school has assured Goodman, who averages around 37 points a game, that it will do everything in its power to pull off a miracle: create a schedule during which the high-powered ACC school will play no games from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday to avoid any conflict with Goodman's observance of the Jewish Sabbath.

In his first two games in the tournament, a 70-50 victory and a 90-88 overtime loss, Goodman, who looks like a cross between Howdy Doody and Opie Taylor, showed why Terps coach Gary Williams is willing to make the effort: He averaged more than 45 points despite constantly being double-teamed. Even in Sunday's painfully deliberate game in front of a packed crowd of more than 1100 fans— most of them in yarmulkes themselves— when the opposing team triple-teamed him, Goodman showed flashes of brilliance, leading his undermanned squad with a game-high 13 points.

Indeed, in the last seconds of the game, with his team trailing by two points, Goodman did a fair imitation of Air Jordan when he drew three defenders toward him in the corner and then dumped the ball inside to a wide-open teammate for an easy layup. Even after the shot was missed, and Talmudical Academy again went down to defeat, his expression barely changed. As one spectator said approvingly, "He plays like a mensch."