Antanas Kavaliauskas

The team had their best start since opening 16–2 in the 1959–1960 season, as well as their best conference opening since the inception of the Big 12.

Antanas Kavaliauskas (born September 19, 1984) is a Lithuanian professional basketball coach and former player.

He serves as the director of player development for the Wake Forest Demon Deacons of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).

He played college basketball at Texas A&M University.

Antanas Kavaliauskas was born in Vilnius to Birutė Kavaliauskienė.

After his parents divorced when he was eleven, Kavaliauskas lived with his mother, grandmother, and younger sister Eglė in a small apartment in Vilnius.

His mother is a former volleyball player who spent years working as a hairdresser before supporting her family with a job as a security guard.

As their record improved throughout the second half of the season, the Aggies earned a spot in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1987.

During the tournament, Kavaliauskas averaged 10.5 points and 4.0 rebounds.

After winning their first round match-up against Syracuse, the Aggies appeared poised to reach the Sweet 16 when, with 18 seconds left in their second-round game against LSU, teammate Acie Law hit a jumper, giving the Aggies a 57–55 lead.

The dream was dashed fifteen seconds later, however, when Darrel Mitchell completed a three-point shot for LSU over the head of Kavaliauskas.

Convinced that he was the reason the team lost, Kavaliauskas found a photo of Mitchell's game-winning shot and hung it in his locker as a daily reminder of what he needs to work on.

When Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Birutė Kavaliauskienė sent her son away for several weeks to protect him from the Soviet troops who were occupying the city.

Once the situation became safer, Antanas returned home, but remembers seeing Soviet troops for several more months before they finally left the country.

Despite the fact that he was neither a very good student nor an exceptional basketball player (averaging only 5 minutes per game for his club team), Kavaliauskas's height (2.08m) brought him to the attention of a scout, who recommended him to the coach of the basketball team at Barton County Community College in Great Bend, Kansas, United States.

Kavaliauskas entered the U.S. on September 4, 2003, knowing only three words of English: Yes, no, and okay.

A fellow international teammate, Brazilian J. P. Batista, became Kavaliauskas's mentor.

Within three months Kavaliauskas was fluent in English, his fourth language (after Lithuanian, German, and Russian).

During his first year at school he gained 45 pounds eating McDonald's double cheeseburgers, bringing his weight to a more athletic 245 pounds.

In his second year at the school, he earned first-team all-region and all-conference honors for averaging 17.6 points per game.

He led the region in rebounds (10 per game), and offensive rebounding (3.9 per game).

In his sophomore season he completed 50.9 percent of his attempts from the field, leading his team and ranking fifth in the region, and also led the team in blocked shots (29).

His career field goal percentage (58) ranks second in the history of Barton County Community College.

After being recruited by South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia Tech, Kavaliauskas chose to attend Texas A&M University to play under coach Billy Gillispie.

Gillispie had originally intended to recruit another player on the Barton County team, but after watching several practices he was very impressed with the mobility of such a large man as Kavaliauskas.

In his first 21 games with Texas A&M, Kavaliauskas averaged only 5.4 points, and his team had compiled only a 4–6 record in the Big 12.

Over the last ten games, however, he improved to an average of 8.6 points per game.

Overall, Kavaliauskas averaged 6.5 points and 3.4 rebounds per game and was the team leader in field goal percentage (.584).

Twice scoring a career-high fifteen points, against Iowa State and Savannah State, Kavaliauskas also posted a career-high nine rebounds against Colorado in the Big 12 Tournament.

He also earned a spot on the media Big 12 All-Newcomer Team.

He played in 30 games during the season,

Shortly after beginning play in the 2006–2007 season, the Aggies reached Number 6 in the rankings, the highest rank the school had ever achieved.

In a historic moment on February 3, 2007, the Aggies became the first Big 12 South team (in 32 attempts) to ever beat the then-Number 6 Kansas Jayhawks at Allen Fieldhouse.

Less than two days later the team beat then-Number 25 Texas, their twenty-first straight home win, making them the sole leader of the Big 12.

After a Dallas Morning News article profiled Kavaliauskas, mentioning that he had only seen his mother twice since he moved to the USA, many Texas A&M fans inquired about raising money to reunite the family temporarily.

Texas A&M discovered that the NCAA-financed Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund could be used, and paid for Birute Kavaliauskiene to travel to the US for the first time to see her son play in his last home game for A&M.

In the Aggies' 94–78 win over Missouri, Kavaliauskas, whose mother traveled all the way from Lithuania to see him play, scored a career-high 26 points on 11-of-12 shooting.

The win assured the Aggies of a second-place finish in the Big 12 regular season, the highest the team has ever finished in this conference.

For the season Kavaliauskas ranks first in the Big 12 in field goal percentage (58.0).

He has averaged 12.5 points per game, and was awarded second-team All Big 12 honors.