Kestutis Kemzura announced preliminary list of candidates for the Lithuanian National Team for the pre-Olympic Qualifying Tournament, which will be held in Venezuela this summer. In a press conference in Vilnius, the coach confirmed the extended list of players, but also said that only 15 of them will be invited to the first training camp.
“I wanted to let all these
players know that they can be of use to the national team and they can end up
being invited, but we just don’t have enough time to test them all before the
pre-Olympic Qualifying Tournament,” said Kemzura.
According to the coach,
it is still unclear whether Sarunas Jasikevicius will put on a Lithuanian
jersey this summer, as the player hasn’t made a final decision about the coming
to the national team.
There are also some
doubts about the two Montepaschi players, as Ksistof Lavrinovic has admitted
back pains and openly doubted whether he’ll be available for selection in the
summer and Rimantas Kaukenas has just returned from a serious injury, but
should start playing soon.
Four players got the
first call-up to the national team, amongst which are the names of Rolandas
Alijevas, Adas Juskevicius, Zygimantas Janavicius and Antanas Kavaliauskas.
Preliminary candidate list for the national team:
