Arizona's Henri Veesaar, Motiejus Krivas in spotlight at FIBA U20 European Championships

For five Arizona players, international basketball is a two-part process this summer.

Planning an Aug. 10-20 Middle East exhibition trip together, the Wildcats already sent Kylan Boswell (USA) and Filip Borovicanin (Serbia) off to play in the FIBA U19 World Cup earlier this month in Hungary.

Now, forwards Henri Veesaar (Estonia) and Motiejus Krivas (Lithuania) will play in the FIBA U20 European Championships starting Saturday in Greece while guard Conrad Martinez (Spain) is scheduled to play in the FIBA U18 European Championships from July 22-30.

Veesaar and Krivas were both named in a FIBA story entitled “Which players will make the biggest impact at #FIBAU20Europe?” along with Stanford center Maxime Raynaud (France) and seven others. The tournament will also feature two other Pac-12 players: German forward Michael Rataj of Oregon State and Turkish forward Berke Buyuktuncel, who is expected to join UCLA this fall.

In addition, former UA guard Adama Bal, who transferred to Santa Clara after last season, will play again for France after playing well for his native country in last year’s U20 European Championships.

After a relatively quiet freshman season at Arizona, Veesaar will be in the spotlight this month, leading Estonia in a potentially difficult group pool that includes Serbia, Montenegro and defending champion Spain.

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Veesaar drew attention when he averaged 16.2 points and 11.6 rebounds while leading the tournament in blocked shots (3.8) during a FIBA U18 European Challengers event two years ago.

“Veesaar has consistently stood out through his career as one of the most versatile forwards in the European youth levels,” FIBA’s preview said. “Coming off an efficient freshman year for Arizona at NCAA level, albeit on limited minutes, Estonia will look for Veesaar to repeat the impactful two-way performance he had at the FIBA U18 European Challengers 2021.”

Krivas, meanwhile, raised his profile while becoming the leading rebounder (13.4) in the 2022 FIBA U18 European Championships, then playing well for Lithuanian club Zalgiris last season.

“He was dominant for Zalgiris’ second team,” FIBA wrote. “Despite being one of the youngest players in attendance, Krivas’ ability to dominate in the paint will be one of the keys for Lithuania in the quest for their first U20 title since 2012.”

At the end of FIBA’s preview, a voting tool said as of Friday afternoon that 8% of voters said Veesaar would be the most impactful, while Krivas had 7% and Serbia’s Nikola Saranovic led the field at 23%.

Veesar will match up with Saranovic when Estonia faces Serbia in the first game of the tournament at 3:30 a.m. Arizona time Saturday, while Krivas and Lithuania will face Croatia at 11 a.m. All FIBA U20 European Championship games will be streamed on FIBA’s YouTube channel.