[bigsmooth]

i was reading the roanoke times and ran across this about this player from roanoke catholic who has an offer from liberty. catholic has had a lithuanian pipeline lately, with the last guy going to VMI, Tadas Mankevicius. does anyone know more about him?

Echols, Gaither honored on VIS basketball teams

Carlisle's Steven Echols has been named the Virginia Independent Schools Division III boys' basketball player of the year, while Roanoke Catholic's Joe Gaither was selected coach of the year on the Division II team.

Echols, a senior guard, led Carlisle to the Division III championship earlier this month. Guard Joe Manns also made the 10-man first team for the Chiefs.

Roanoke Catholic's threesome of Turner King, Phillip Martin and Aurimas Adomaitis made the first team in Division II after the Celtics won their second straight VIS crown.

Danny Manuel of Miller School was named Division II player of the year.

Danny Sumner of Paul VI was chosen as the player of the year in Division I.

Gaither said Adomaitis, a 6-foot-8 power forward from Lithuania, has seven Division I offers and might make a commitment this week. Adomaitis has offers from three in-state schools -- VMI, Liberty and Radford -- as well as offers from Quinnipiac, Long Island, Fairleigh Dickinson and Youngstown State.

[Sly Fox]

I like that Division I Player of the Year without even meeting him.

Here are a few pics of the kid playing for a junior team back in his homeland of Lithuania that is apparently owned by Arvydis Sabonis:




FIBA Europe Profile

He's a 6' 9" Power Forward/Post that apparently had verballed to Radford once upon a time.

[bigsmooth]

i spoke with some people in the catholic community last night and they say he is much better than the kid who went to VMI...much better work ethic, and more athletic. roanoke catholic has won back to back state titles while he was there and coach gaither is the local AAU coach whose former players include, george lynch, curtis staples, and J.R. Reynolds. word is after he verbally committed to radford, we got cold feet, esp after more offers came in for his services.

[Sly Fox]

Apparently he signed with Long Island (LIU).

[PAmedic]

Radford's board was saying (a while back) that they thought they had him. Hmmm.

I'd look it up but that purple background makes me blind after about 2 minutes. YIKES