Arizona Basketall: Tubelis’ named to Lithuania U19 World Cup team

With Arizona Basketball staying busy this off-season, the Tubelis brothers will be busy as well as they compete for Lithuania in the preliminary U19 World Cup. 

With so many international players on the Arizona Basketball team, naturally, they are going to draw interest from their national teams when Tournaments arise. For the Tubelis brothers, that is exactly what happened as they will compete in the preliminary FIBA U19 World Cup this summer.

The news of the Tubelis’ playing for Lithuania broke on Thursday afternoon, and it will make for a busy summer for the both of them.

Arizona Wildcats

According to Wildcat Authority’s Jason Scheer, this training camp for the Tournament will start June 1, and the U19 event will run from July 3-11.

Already, Azuolas has become a star for the Wildcats, averaging 12.2 points and 7.1 rebounds per game in 26 games as a freshman this past year, and his future is certainly bright.

With him likely having an even bigger role with the Wildcats this coming season, all the extra work this off-season will be beneficial.

However, joining him this summer will also be his twin brother, Tautvilas. While he did not have as big of a role with the Wildcats last year, opportunities like this are invaluable for Tautvilas as it will give him more chances to play and improve. Make no mistake, this is a big off-season for him as well.

With Arizona Basketball transitioning to the Tommy Lloyd era continued development will be key to Wildcats’ success in 2021 and beyond.

Already, Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd is adjusting to being a head coach, and as he is starting to see some recruiting success, adversely, he has also seen a few recruiting misses.

However, that is not what will be important for Arizona in the immediate. Luckily, Tommy returns a large contingency of talent from last year, and his success will be weighed more on the results of the season. Hence why development is going to be more crucial in 2021-22 than bringing in players like TyTy Washington or Arthur Kaluma.

Should Arizona’s returnees take a major step forward Arizona will be just fine, and to me, it starts with the Tubelis’ competing this summer for the Lithuanian U-19 team.