Being thrown into a white-knuckle, two-hour Uber caravan through the nation’s tornado-threatened heartland wasn’t the only reason Azuolas and Tautvilas Tubelis had to feel uncomfortable on a late Friday night in December.
Also, they were in different cars.
“They separated the brothers,” Tautvilas Tubelis said.
Arizona’s charter flight to Champaign, Illinois, had been diverted to Indianapolis because of poor visibility, forcing the Wildcats to split up in order to make the final two-hour segment via rideshare.
“It was dangerous,” Azuolas Tubelis said.
And neither one of the Wildcats’ Lithuanian twins could share the experience in person with the other.
That was the tough part.
Arizona's Azuolas and Tautvilas Tubelis describe growing up together in Lithuania, how they've adjusted to life in America and what it's like to play for Tommy Lloyd.
Ever since they can remember, being together was the way it worked. The fraternal twins might have disappeared for a minute or two during childhood games of hide-and-seek but otherwise were together, playing soccer, basketball, computer games and swimming in their hometown of Vilnius, Lithuania.
They even slept within inches of each other.
“We had a very small room,” Tautvilas said. “On one side, my bed. On the other side, his bed. One table. That’s it.”
Through it all, a bond developed that’s strong even by twin standards.
“I think of a song in my head and he just, for no reason, starts to sing it,” Tautvilas said. “But of course, when he’s dealing with something, I can see if something’s wrong. He can do that, too. It’s just that twin connection is different.”
That’s why both “’Zu” and “Tote,” as they are sometimes known around McKale Center, are at Arizona.
Arizona forward Tautvilas Tubelis, left, and his twin brother forward Azuolas talk on the sidelines during the Wildcats’ Dec. 18 shootaround. The two are close, even by twin standards.
Azuolas was the higher-profile recruit, dubbed the best European player in his class to go the U.S. college route by ESPN. He became a starter eight games into his freshman season of 2020-21. As a sophomore this season, he’s been challenging for an all-conference spot.
Tautvilas doesn’t often get off the bench. He played in five games as a freshman last season and has played in 10 so far this season, often lumped in with the walk-ons for playing time.
But Tautvilas’ role goes well beyond the minutes he plays. He’s also a support system.
“For me, it’s just getting better during practices,” Tautvilas said. “I came here to help my brother, and I have this opportunity. I do what I can and I’m not planning to go anywhere else.”
Tautvilas’ value was clear not long after the twins arrived in Tucson together in late August 2020, during practices under then-coach Sean Miller.
It was their first introduction to the U.S. college game, and they were drinking from a firehose.
“It was hard, not just for him,” Tautvilas said of his brother. “The practices are so different here. The level of practicing, it’s so different. It’s way, way more tough. Way harder, way longer. So maybe it was hard for him to adjust to that and go, ‘No, no, I don’t want to.’ But he adjusted to that. We adjusted to that.”
Unlike many international college players, the Tubelis brothers had not spent a year or two at a basketball-focused prep school in the United States, nor played on the high-profile club ball circuit. They had spent their entire lives in European clubs and national team programs, so Azuolas wasn’t sure he was in the right place at Arizona initially.
Arizona's Azuolas and Tautvilas Tubelis describe growing up together in Lithuania, how they've adjusted to life in America and what it's like to play for Tommy Lloyd.
“I had a lot of bad days when I practiced bad and coach yell at me,” Azuolas said. “I came to my dorm really, sad, angry. I kept saying, ‘I don’t want to play this game. Why am I here?’”
Tautvilas told him why.
“He said a lot of things (to get me) to keep playing. ‘That’s why you are here. You need to use this opportunity,’” Azoulas said.
There were challenges off the court, too. For one, Azuolas and Tautvilas were thrown into English-speaking classes for the first time in their lives. And nearly all UA’s fall 2020 classes were being held remotely because of COVID-19 concerns.
If something an instructor said wasn’t going to make sense to them in person, it was even tougher over the computer.
“Everything was online and on top of that, there were a lot of difficult words,” Tautvilas said. “For example, you take an exam, (and it’s) what is that? And you can’t look it up because it’s an exam. So it was tough. But every day I’d learn something new being here.”
Both Azoulas and Tautvilas say this year is going much better academically. Classes are being held in person and, of course, their English is much better.
On the court, success has come quickly, too. In just his second game as a collegian last season, Azuolas had 13 points and nine rebounds against Eastern Washington. He broke into the Wildcats’ starting lineup after collecting 10 points and six rebounds over 21 minutes against Stanford in Arizona’s Pac-12 opener last season.
Zu then went on to make the Pac-12’s all-freshman team last season, finishing as the Wildcats’ second-leading scorer (12.2 points per game) and leading rebounder (7.1).
“First year was tough year for both of us,” Azuolas said. “But we didn’t expect that we would adjust so fast because our English got better. We spoke easily and we now understand almost every word.
“Basketballwise, for me, I didn’t expect that, that I would (play a lot) so fast, that coach will trust me and I would start in (my) eighth game.”
But when Miller was fired last April, the Tubelis twins faced the possibility of starting over somewhere else. Seven of last year’s 13 scholarship players entered the transfer portal, but Lloyd managed to lure guard Kerr Kriisa back — and kept Azuolas and Tautvilas completely away from the portal.
Arizona forward Azuolas Tubelis stuffs USC guard Boogie Ellis in the second half of Saturday's game in McKale Center.
Apparently, it wasn’t that hard a sell.
“We had a great talk,” Azuolas said. “He said, ‘I knew you when you were 16 or 17 years old, but we couldn’t get you to Gonzaga because we had too many bigs. But now I’m happy that we are together and we’ll do great things.’”
It may have helped that their mother knew basketball. Valentina Tubeliene works at a basketball school in Lithuania, watches all UA games online and showed up in person for the Wildcats’ game with Arizona State on Jan. 29 to visit her sons for the first time ever in Tucson.
To Valentina, her sons played for Arizona last season. And they were on the roster to play for Arizona this season.
So it was simple.
Arizona forward Azuolas Tubelis is playing at an all-conference level this season.
“She didn’t think about it,” Azuolas said. “She didn’t know what is it to transfer to another school. So we were just calm and quiet and didn’t think to leave.”
As a sophomore this season, Zu is averaging 14.6 points and 6.5 rebounds while improving defensively — a key reason why the Wildcats are ranked No. 4 nationally heading into Thursday’s game at Washington State. UA swept through UCLA, USC and ASU over the past week, improving to 20-2.
Also as a sophomore, Tautvilas keeps helping make both his brother and his coach’s existence a little bit easier.
On those occasions when Lloyd finds a need to to get through to Azuolas in practice or a game, he has the option of doing so directly or going through his brother, saying he goes that route in a teasing form.
During one practice, “I think Zu threw kind of a lazy pass and I went up to Tote on the side and said, Tote, tell him to quit throwing those lazy passes,” Lloyd said. “Tote’s like, ‘Coach, he’s done those his whole life.’ They’re just great guys and it’s a lot of fun to have them around.”
Only a high left ankle sprain has limited Azuolas lately, and the Tubelis brothers could blame that one on separation, too.
When Azuolas went down at Stanford on Jan. 20, his legs taken out by a falling Stanford forward Harrison Ingram, Tautvilas wasn’t even around. He was back in Tucson, sick with a non-COVID illness.
But that’s the sort of thing they may have to get used to in the future.
“They have a special relationship and special bond and, you know, they’re both turning into men,” Lloyd said. “I’m sure they won’t be able to be together every single day of their life for the rest of their lives.
“So I think they’re just kind of enjoying this time, because who knows how much longer they’re going to be roommates and be able to in each other’s lives on a daily basis?”
The twins did willingly take a small step toward that inevitability this season.
Instead of cramming into a dorm room together, Azuolas and Tautvilas are now spreading out inside a two-bedroom apartment.
“Own rooms,” Zu says, “own bathrooms.”
“Separate rooms,” Tote added. “First time in our life.”
