Marijonas Petravičius

Marijonas Petravičius
Player information
birthday	24th October 1979 (age 40)
place of birth	Šilalė, Soviet Union
size	208 cm
position	Center / Power Forward
college	South carolina
Clubs as active
1997–1998 KK Šilutė 1999–2003 USC Gamecocks ( NCAA ) 2003–2004 Central German BC 2004–2005 Telindus Oostende 2005–2006 BK Ventspils 2006–2009 BC Lietuvos Rytas 2009–2011 Armani Jeans Milan 2012 BK Chimki 00000
National team
2008-2011	Lithuania

Marijonas Petravičius (born October 24, 1979 in Šilalė , Lithuanian SSR ) is a former Lithuanian basketball player . In his first professional season after studying in the USA , Petravičius won the FIBA EuroCup Challenge 2004 and MVP of the final tournament with the German club MBC from Weißenfels . With the more prestigious ULEB Eurocup 2009, the Olympic participant won another European Cup in 2008 wearing BC Lietuvos rytas from Vilnius and was once again named the most valuable player in the final tournament. After a pulmonary embolism at the 2011 European Championship finals in his home country, Petravičius skipped almost the entire 2011/12 season and finally ended his career in the summer of 2012.

Club career

Petravičius went to the United States to study at the University of South Carolina in 1999 , where he played for the college team Gamecocks in the Southeastern Conference of the NCAA Division I. During his student days, the Gamecocks failed to qualify for the national finals . After completing his studies, Petravičius returned to Europe in 2003 and played for the German first division club MBC in the 2003/04 BBL season . At the international level, the MBC was able to win the FIBA ​​EuroCup Challenge and Petravičius won the award as the most valuable player of the final tournament as a professional newcomer despite experienced teammates like Wendell Alexis and Misan Nikagbatse . At the national level, however, the club's license was withdrawn at the end of the season and its results were removed from the rating. Petravičius then moved to Telindus in Ostend, Belgium, in April 2004 .

In 2005 Petravičius returned to the Baltic States and played for the Latvian basketball club from Ventspils , with which he was able to win the national championship. In 2006 he moved to his home country to the national champion BC Lietuvos rytas from the capital Vilnius . Nationally they were inferior to their rival Žalgiris Kaunas in the following two seasons , but in 2007 they defended the title in the Baltic Basketball League and reached the final in the ULEB Eurocup, which was lost to Real Madrid . In the following season Petravičius had in addition to the American Chuck Eidson , with whom he already played in the NCAA at the Gamecocks, with his compatriot Hollis Price, two teammates who were also previously active in the German basketball league. Although they lost the final of the Baltic League against national rivals Žalgiris this season, but in the ULEB Euroleague 2007/08 they won the group in the preliminary round, but were eliminated in the intermediate round of the sixteen best teams. In the 2008/09 season they won not only the national double from championship and cup and the championship in the Baltic League against Žalgiris, but also the ULEB Eurocup in the final against BK Chimki from Moscow . In the final against BK Chimki Petravičius was top scorer of his team with 20 points and was again elected MVP of the final tournament of the best eight teams.

Then in 2009 Petravičius moved to the Italian Lega Basket Serie A to Armani Jeans from Milan . In 2010 they reached the national championship final, which was lost to Montepaschi Siena , in the following season they were eliminated in the championship semi-finals. After signing a contract with Beşiktaş Milangaz for the 2011/12 season, lung problems diagnosed as embolism occurred in his own country during the final round of the 2011 European Basketball Championship . As a result, Beşiktaş resigned from the contract, even after the recovery in January 2012, a contract with the Ukrainian club BK Azovmasch Mariupol was not concluded. A week later he finally signed a contract for the rest of the season with the Russian runner-up BK Chimki, where he is trained by his compatriot Rimas Kurtinaitis . After only one championship game at the Moscow suburb club, the contract was terminated in mid-February 2012. Then Petravičius ended his career because a return to competitive sport no longer seemed possible.

National team

Petravičius' first final tournament with the Lithuanian national team was the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing . After winning the group in the preliminary round with a victory over defending champions Argentina, they lost to world champions Spain in the semi-finals . In the game for the bronze medal, they finally lost to Argentina and finished fourth. The following European basketball championship in 2009 in neighboring Lithuania, Poland, ended with a great disappointment for the Lithuanians, who were otherwise always considered medal candidates, when, after two opening defeats against Turkey and the Polish hosts in the second round, they played all three games against the eventual finalists Spain and Serbia as well lost to Slovenia and was eliminated before the quarter-finals after only one preliminary round victory against Bulgaria . In the following basketball world championship in 2010 in Turkey, where the Lithuanians won the bronze medal, Petravičius did not take part due to injury. At the 2011 European Championship in his own country, Petravičius and his teammates wanted to win not just a medal, but the fourth European title for the Baltic country. After struggling with injury problems in the two seasons in Milan, the EM was also over for him after two games for health reasons.

Web links

Commons : Marijonas Petravičius  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Marijonas PETRAVICIUS (LTU) - Statistics overview on the archive pages of FIBA (English)
• PETRAVICIUS, MARIUS - player profile on the websites of the ULEB Euroleague (English)
• Marijonas Petravicius - player profile on the statistics pages of Serie A (Italian)
• Marius Petravicius Stats - South Carolina Gamecocks - College playtime stats on statsheet.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mitteldeutscher 84 SAOS JDA Dijon 68. FIBAEurope.com, March 28, 2004, accessed on September 4, 2011 (English, match report for the 2004 EuroCup Challenge final). 
2. ↑ Javier Gancedo: Petravicius caps road to stardom as Final Eight MVP. Eurocupbasketball.com, April 6, 2009, accessed September 4, 2011 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b} Injury List Update. FIBAEurope.com, September 4, 2011, accessed September 4, 2011 . 
4. ↑ Petravicius will not join Azovmash. (No longer available online.) LithuaniaBasketball.com January 10, 2012, archived from the original January 21, 2012 ; accessed on January 17, 2012 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ↑ KHIMKI inks former champ Petravicius. (No longer available online.) ULEB , January 16, 2012, formerly in the original ; accessed on January 17, 2012 (English).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
6. ↑ Marijonas Petravicius / Euro Basket 2011. FIBAEurope.com, accessed on September 3, 2011 (English, EM 2011-Player profile).