Antanas Sireika
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| Juventus Utena | |||||||||||||
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| Position | Head coach | ||||||||||||
| League |
Lithuanian Basketball League Basketball Champions League |
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| Personal information | |||||||||||||
| Born |
May 11, 1956 Bazilionai, near Šiauliai, Lithuanian SSR, Soviet Union |
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| Nationality | Lithuanian | ||||||||||||
| Coaching career | 1995–present | ||||||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||||||
| As coach: | |||||||||||||
| 1995–2002 | Šiauliai | ||||||||||||
| 2001–2006 | Lithuania NT | ||||||||||||
| 2002–2006 | Žalgiris Kaunas | ||||||||||||
| 2006–2007 | UNICS Kazan | ||||||||||||
| 2008 | Lietuvos rytas Vilnius | ||||||||||||
| 2008–2012 | Šiauliai | ||||||||||||
| 2012–2014 | |||||||||||||
| 2015–present | Juventus Utena | ||||||||||||
| Career highlights and awards | |||||||||||||
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Medals
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Antanas Sireika (born May 11, 1956 in Bazilionai near Šiauliai) is a professional Lithuanian basketball coach.
The Lithuanian national basketball team traditionally replaces the head coach with his assistant, this happened when Vladas Garastas was replaced by his assistant coach Jonas Kazlauskas. The story was repeated in 2001, when the successor of Kazlauskas was his assistant coach Antanas Sireika. He was born in Šiauliai, and a big part of his basketball career was spent there. Sireika played for Šiauliai, later he became the playing head coach of the team, in 1994 he ended his career as a player, and started coaching full-time. Big results came fast, the underdog Šiauliai, became 3rd place winners in the LKL. In 1997, Kazlauskas became head coach of the Lithuanian mational basketball team, and invited Sireika to join the squad as his assistant. In 2001, Kazlauskas retired from the national team, and gave his place to Sireika. With Sireika, the Lithuanian national basketball team won their first EuroBasket gold medals after Lithuania's independence in 1991 (the first titles came in 1937 and 1939).
The same year, Sireika made an important decision: he left his home in Šiauliai, and moved to Kaunas, to coach Žalgiris Kaunas. He won three LKL titles in a row in 2003, 2004 and 2005. At the 2004 Summer Olympics, Sireika coached the Lithuanian team to a 4th place with a memorable win against the United States.
Since 2003, Žalgiris Kaunas started to fade away from all the EuroLeague glory they had a few years ago. Žalgiris' EuroLeague results got worse every year. In the 2005–06 season Sireika was dealing with huge amount of criticism aimed at him, because of poor results in EuroLeague and Lietuvos rytas Vilnius was at the top of the Lithuanian league standings. On March 28, 2006 in a LKL regular season rivalry game, Sireika's coached Žalgiris played against Lietuvos rytas and lost the match by 30 points. After the game Sireika left the team.
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