For Lithuania's 'Mad Dog' and the Wildcats, growth happens on and off the court

Known as “Mad Dog” around UA, where the Lithuanian basketball federation project manager showed up last week to renew ties with the Wildcats, Gobikas had to pick Lloyd up at the Vilnius Airport and drive him to the team hotel, where his players had been touring and practicing without him during the early days of their exhibition tour of Lithuania.

Then he had to hustle Lloyd on a team bus headed for the beach town of Palanga, where Lloyd and the Wildcats held a practice and later hung out at a resort owned by Lithuanian basketball legend Arvydas Sabonis.

It was there that Gobikas realized Lloyd needed no tour guide. Just somebody to drive him around.

Lloyd knew all the cultural roads.

The UA coach even broke through the massive barrier that is Sabonis, the 7-3 basketball hero whose larger-than-life presence belies a quiet nature. Long ago, after all, Lloyd had successfully recruited Sabonis’ son, Domantas, to Gonzaga before an NBA career that now has him with the Sacramento Kings.

“From their interaction, I could see that Tommy has known Arvydas for a long time,” Gobikas said. “He knows Lithuania, knows the players, saying names. I was like, ‘Oh, OK, he knows all the guys.’ ”

While Arvydas said a few words to the Wildcats and posed for pictures with those who asked that day in Palanga, Lloyd kept things moving by turning to his son, Zygimantas “Ziggy” Sabonis.

Gobikas said Lloyd prodded Ziggy to tell stories about the hotel he is running and the history of basketball in Lithuania, including the legendary games Arvydas played for the Kaunas Zalgiris club against CSKA Moscow in the 1980s.

“The way he asked him, I thought, ‘This is (a) true teacher who cares,’ ” Gobikas said. “He was big-time inspiration because this is (a) coach who not only cares about basketball, but also about teaching those players to be a better person.”

By serving as a go-to liaison during the Wildcats’ exhibition tour, Gobikas helped broaden the Wildcats' horizons. He even took them to Vilnius’ Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights, otherwise known as the KGB museum.

Inside, the Wildcats were able to walk around prison cells, solitary confinement rooms and interrogation areas to get a feel for the Soviet-era security and intelligence agency.

“It was the true place where they incarcerated people who were against the political” agencies, Gobikas said. “It’s down in the basement and once you enter that area, and if you take yourself back in those times, you realize if you end up here, you're done. Like, there's no way out of this.

“It’s so authentic, really lots of stuff from those times. (The players) came out really shook a little bit, so to speak. You could see it in their faces.”

The Wildcats were being broadened, like Lloyd had been for decades, in part because Few, his boss for over two decades at Gonzaga, dispatched him to travel internationally and start developing relationships that ultimately helped bring Domantas Sabonis to Gonzaga (and, eventually, Motiejus Krivas to Arizona).

In a different way, Gobikas has broadened himself through travel to the United States, first while working summer jobs in Wisconsin as a college student in Lithuania and, this fall, during a month-long driving tour through the United States.

Gobikas started by flying into Chicago, then drove to Milwaukee to visit Lithuanian guard Kasparas Jakucionus, and on to Dallas to visit other friends.

Next, he went to Tempe to visit with Paulius Murauskas, the Lithuanian forward who spent the 2023-24 season at Arizona, played two seasons at Saint Mary’s and now plays for ASU. He also visited with former Wildcat Tautvilas Tubelis, who is now a graduate assistant for the Sun Devils, and then spent time with Krivas and Ugnius Jarusevicius in Tucson.

Krivas even met Krivas to hang out briefly at Time Market on Friday after watching the Wildcats beat Cal Poly on Thursday. After taking in the UA-TCU football game Friday, then visiting the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas over the weekend, he was scheduled to see Domantas Sabonis in Sacramento, too.

“It’s just to ‘say hello,’ talk if they have time,” Gobikas said of his visits. “I'm sure they're happy to see someone from Lithuania, speak the language and just share whatever is on their mind.”

It’s also an informal way to maintain relations with players who often return to Lithuania to play for its national teams. Even though Gobikas said he's paying for the trip with his own funds, he's compensated by getting to see things he doesn't get to at home.

“The cool thing is the variety of the landscape because Lithuania is like Wisconsin,” Gobikas said. “It’s just flat. I mean, we have rivers, lakes, etc., but nothing else. But here, for me, starting with New Mexico, there’s this long, long road, and then you see the mountains in the end. That’s a huge contrast.

“Like there's flat, and then there's huge. That just strikes me.”

Maybe in the long run, keeping relationships strong with Lithuania's best players all might help pay off on the basketball court, too.

Also working with testing and development of youth basketball players throughout Lithuania, Gobikas said the country's shrinking population is hurting its national teams.

Even though Lithuania is one of a few countries where basketball is the most popular sport — along with China and the Philippines — the passion can’t quite compensate for a country that has about a million fewer people than the 3.7 million it had when it declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1990.

There are already signs of trouble. When Gobikas returns to Lithuania later this month in time for the next FIBA World Cup qualifying window, the country’s senior team likely won’t be able to lose again if it is to make the 2027 World Cup.

Gobingas said a painful 87-84 loss to Italy on July 5 helped put the Lithuanians in the hole: Coincidentally, while former Wildcat standout Azuolas Tubelis had 25 points and 12 rebounds in that game, another former Wildcat did them in — Nico Mannion had 27 points and five assists for Italy.

Lithuania has four games left, and Gobikas said if Lithuania doesn’t win all of them, it likely won't be in Qatar next August and September for the World Cup.

For a country that loves basketball as much as Lithuania does, that’s a scary prospect.

“We’re in deep trouble,” Gobikas said. “Having summer without the meaningful competition is really challenging in every aspect.”