“This is who we are,” Mekel said in a telephone interview this month. “Every Israeli, that’s his duty — to serve the country.”

But balancing that civic responsibility and grand athletic aspirations could be difficult, Mekel said. Service requires time away from gyms and coaches, time that other players in other nations would spend on developing their skills. It is an undeniable hurdle.

“Growing up, yeah, you have those concerns,” Mekel said. “Because you want to focus on your dream, your job, basketball. But everybody knows you got to serve. It’s not something you want to fight with.”

Maayan got a glimpse of such a fight: because he was late arriving to Israel in March, the army sent him to a military prison for two days. From there, he went to boot camp for a month, where he rose at 5 a.m., trained in the heat, learned how to shoot guns and how to sleep in the desert. After camp, he worked in a military office, filing paperwork, and trained with the Israeli under-20 national team in the evenings.

Meanwhile, Fuchs and Sauers continued to send emails and letters and place phone calls between Israel and the United States, urging the Israeli Sports Administration to consider Maayan for an exemption. Sauers said his primary objective was to get Israel to understand the level of Seton Hall’s commitment to Maayan.

Sauers would recite the story of how Maayan came to play for the Pirates — a karmic confluence of events. Willard noticed Maayan, long-limbed and tough, only while recruiting Haralds Karlis, Maayan’s teammate at Canarias Basketball Academy, in the Canary Islands.

Willard was interested, but Maayan had offers from other colleges. During Maayan’s lone postgraduate year at Canarias, though, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee. Other teams suddenly shied away, but Willard made him an offer: pay for one semester of classes at Seton Hall, complete your rehabilitation with the team, and there would be a scholarship waiting for you.