Mayim Bialik to Produce Film on YU Maccabees’ Historic 50-Game Winning Streak
A film chronicling the YU Maccabees men's basketball team's 50 game winning streak from 2019 to 2021 is set to be produced by former Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik.
The film, titled “The Maccabees,” will cover the period during which the YU Maccabees ascended to the top of the NCAA’s Division III national rankings. At the time, their streak was the longest active winning streak in men’s college basketball.
Elliot Steinmetz, a lawyer who has been coaching the Maccabees since 2014, will be spotlighted in the film. According to Deadline, the film will also focus on the players’ commitment to Judaism throughout their winning streak, which included creating a schedule that worked for their religious needs, including observing Shabbat and Jewish holidays and fasting on fast days.
Steinmetz did not respond to The Commentator’s request for comment. He previously told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency he was aware of the project but was not heavily involved.
The team’s most prominent player, Ryan Turell, later joined the Motor City Cruise for two seasons, becoming the first Orthodox Jew to play in the NBA’s minor league, the G League. Turell is now set to play professionally with Ironi Ness Ziona in the Israeli Basketball Premier League, the country’s top professional basketball league. He was also featured in an Amazon Prime documentary about the G League last year.
Bialik’s Sad Clown Productions will produce the film. No director is attached at present.
Bialik is best known for her portrayal of Amy Farrah Fowler on the highly acclaimed CBS sitcom “The Big Bang Theory,” a role that earned her two Critics’ Choice Awards, four Emmy nominations and a nomination from the Screen Actors Guild. More recently, Bialik hosted Jeopardy! for two seasons, during which she received her fifth Emmy nomination and the show received its first primetime Emmy. Bialik, who is Jewish, is also an outspoken activist and avid supporter of Israel.
In a statement to Deadline, Bialik remarked on the significance of announcing the film in a challenging year, adding that “what remains true is that stories of Jewish ingenuity, perseverance, and resilience are necessary more than ever.”
“Who would’ve ever dreamed that a basketball team from the nation’s most prestigious religious Jewish university could reach the DIVISION 3 NCAA finals,” she continued. “Our company is proud to bring this truly unbelievable and inspiring story to life, and we are eager to find partners who believe in continuing the message that Coach Elliot Steinmetz and the Maccabees of Yeshiva University were able to spread in their historic run.”
Matt Ritter, the film’s writer, expressed his hope that “The Maccabees” will counteract negative stereotypes of Jews amidst rising antisemitism.
“It feels like we’re either Holocaust victims or schlubs,” he wrote on Instagram. “This team of exceptional athletes and winners at Yeshiva University did something extraordinary. They went on an epic winning streak, led by a coach who shares my determination to prove Jews can be whatever we want, including great athletes.”
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Photo Caption: The Macs held a 50-game win streak from 2019 to 2021.
Photo Credit: Yeshiva University Athletics
