page_title: Lithuania men's national basketball team
section_title: Lithuanian Americans build a squad (1930s)
hierarchical_section_title: Lithuania men's national basketball team / History / Lithuanian Americans build a squad (1930s)
caption_attribution_description: English: Lithuania national basketball team members after defeating the Italy squad. From left: Zenonas Puziniauskas, Pranas Talzūnas, Feliksas Kriaučiūnas, Juozas Žukas and Leonas Baltrūnas. The knight riding the horse painted on the national team jersey is the inter-war version of Vytis.
context_page_description: The Lithuania men's national basketball team represents Lithuania in international basketball competitions. They are controlled by the Lithuanian Basketball Federation, the governing body for basketball in Lithuania. Despite Lithuania's small size, with a population of less than 3 million, the country's devotion to basketball has made them a traditional force of the sport in Europe.
  The Lithuanian national team won the last EuroBasket tournaments prior to World War II, in 1937 and 1939. The 1939 team was led by Frank Lubin, who helped popularize basketball in the country and was called the "grandfather of Lithuanian basketball". Following the country's annexation by the Soviet Union during the war, Lithuanian players frequently formed the core of the Soviet national team. The most prevalent example was the 1988 Olympic basketball gold medal-winning team, which got most of its scoring from four Lithuanians: Valdemaras Chomičius, Rimas Kurtinaitis, Šarūnas Marčiulionis and Arvydas Sabonis.
  After the restoration of Lithuanian independence in 1990, the national team was resurrected.
context_section_description: Things started to improve in 1934, when the Physical Culture Palace was opened in Kaunas, featuring a spacious hall with 200 seats and cork floor built for tennis that was suitable for indoor basketball. In 1935, Lithuania decided to promote a World Lithuanian Congress in temporary capital Kaunas, inviting ethnic Lithuanians from many countries to unite the Lithuanian culture. The following year, a delegation of Lithuanian American athletes from Chicago  arrived in Kaunas as participants of World Lithuanian Congress. Two of the players, Juozas "Joseph" Zukas and Konstantinas "Konnie" Savickus, stayed to teach basketball secrets to Lithuanians and be a part of the national team. Savickus in particular became a player-coach, and while the national team had just been trounced by  inaugural European champions Latvia 123–10, one year later, with Savickus leading the team and exploiting stalling techniques, Lithuania trailed only 14–7 at halftime before losing 31–10.
  In 1936, Lithuania applied to become a member of FIBA and take part in international basketball competitions, including EuroBasket 1937, the second European basketball tournament that the Latvia Basketball Association as reigning champions would host in Riga. While Savickus had returned to America, another descendant of Lithuanians would arrive to aid the country's basketball rise. Frank Lubin, who won a gold medal at the first basketball Olympic tournament at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, was invited to visit the Baltic nation by a Lithuanian official in attendance. Going by the Lithuanian name Pranas Lubinas, he spent five months there and served as the country's first knowledgeable coach, helping spread various basketball techniques. Lubinas, along with Zukas, helped the Lithuanians beat the Latvians for the first time, 35 to 27.
  The preparations for the EuroBasket 1937 started slowly, with players training only 4 hours a week. At first, it was decided that the national team at the tournament would not include any Lithuanian Americans; however the decision was reversed with only one month remaining, once a Latvian newspaper had printed an extensive article about the second European championship considering Lithuania the weakest of all contestants. Lithuanian player Leonas Baltrūnas was shocked at the article and along with journalist Jonas Narbutas, used a translated version of it to request the inclusion of Lithuanian Americans to Vytautas Augustauskas, director of the Physical Culture Palace. After a telegram was sent to the US, two players arrived one month prior to the tournament, Pranas Talzūnas and Feliksas Kriaučiūnas, the latter of whom was designated as player-coach. To keep secrecy on how Lithuanian Americans were strengthening the team, all preparation games were cancelled and instead prolonged training sessions before the trip to Riga were held behind closed doors. The national team was being prepared not only technically, but also physically. Even once the reinforcements were made public, opponents were skeptic, with Talzūnas later remembering other teams felt he and Kriaučiūnas were not quality players as "everyone thought that a good player must be tall, raising his hand and dunking into the basket.".
  The efforts were successful - the Lithuanians became the champions of Europe for the first time, defeating all their opponents and with Talzūnas being picked as the tournament's most valuable player. Following the final victory over Italy, the famous Lithuanian tenor Kipras Petrauskas even interrupted his performance at the State Theatre to joyfully announce the triumph of the national basketball team. The crowd then rose to their feet and together sang the Lithuanian anthem. The team returned to a warm reception, with thousands gathering at a train station in a way Kriaučiūnas compared to "like we, here in America, greet the president." Basketball regained its ground immediately, and had its popularity rise abruptly, especially among students. Gymnasium teams from almost all counties competed in student games, teams were assembled in firms an
caption: Lithuanians after defeating Italy in 1937
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