In a summer of adjustments, UA's Derek Dixon and Cam Holmes look ahead to Lithuania

Yet when they land in the capital city of Vilnius with the rest of the Wildcats on Friday morning, they still may not know what to expect with what will be their first trip to Europe.

After all, Lithuanians such as UA’s Motiejus Krivas and Ugnius Jarusevicius aren't exactly known for oversharing.

“Mo’s not a big talker,” Dixon said with a laugh. “But I guess we’ll see it when we get out there. I’m just excited for it.”

Montenegrin wing Maxsim Brnovic apparently hasn’t been a whole lot of help, either. He spent last season playing for the junior team of the well-regarded Lithuanian club Zalgiris, but hasn’t offered many tales about that experience.

“Not much, no,” Dixon said.

But after the Wildcats were scheduled to hold a final stateside practice Wednesday in Phoenix, they still had plenty of time to ponder what’s ahead: They’ll begin their 12-day exhibition tour of Lithuania on Thursday with flights from Phoenix to Chicago and Chicago to Frankfurt before finally landing in Lithuania on Friday afternoon.

From there, the Wildcats are scheduled to spend three days in and around Vilnius, then travel Monday to practice and hang out with Lithuanian basketball legend Arvydas Sabonis in the coastal resort town of Palanga.

After that, it’s on to Kaunas, the country’s second largest city and home to the Zalgiris club. During their stay there, the Wildcats will practice and play their three exhibition games in nearby cities, facing the Lithuanian “B” team on Aug. 19, the Ukrainian national team on Aug. 20 and the Lithuanian senior team on Aug. 22. (Streaming for the games is expected but not yet determined).

In preparation, the Wildcats have taken advantage of the extra 10 full practices teams are allowed before taking offseason foreign tours.

Teams used to only be able to take foreign exhibition tours once every four years, but a rule change was passed this year to allow one every year, and the Wildcats responded by assembling a trip to Lithuania even though they went to the Middle East in 2023.

“I definitely feel like these practices have helped,” Holmes said. “The main thing is just building chemistry with each other. We scrimmage a lot. It’s just learning the feel of the game.”

Holmes said they have also been watching plenty of video.

“This is going to get us prepared for the upcoming season,” Holmes said. “We're not taking this lightly. We’re preparing to go out there and play three 40-minute games, so we’ve got to watch as much film as possible.”

While many of the Wildcats are adjusting to each other — and Holmes says he’s adjusting to the physicality of the college game — they may not have to worry too much about adjusting to the international rules they'll be facing on the trip.

They have an ideal tour guide for that: UA coach Tommy Lloyd.

On top of holding deep international recruiting ties — and sometimes attaching his summer vacations around FIBA events — Lloyd coached USA Basketball junior teams to gold medals in the 2024 FIBA U18 AmeriCup and the 2025 U19 World Cup.

He knows what’s ahead.

“He’s mixed in a little bit of teaching us the rules of FIBA," Dixon said. “Like that the you can tip the ball off the rim out of bounds, and you can't go backcourt on sideline out of bounds. It's just little tips and stuff like that that we've gone over, just so we're comfortable and not caught off guard.”

It's also still possible that Dixon and Holmes will pick up some tips off the floor along the way.

Holmes received one, at least, leading up to their Wildcats' trip: He said Krivas and “Oogie” Jarusevecius did actually mention the cold Lithuanian “pink soup” that is popular in the country, especially in the summertime.

“I looked it up on Safari. It looked kind of weird,” Holmes said. “But they said it would be good. They said I would like it. So I’m gonna try it when I get out there.”