Lietkabelis Panevezys enters its fourth 7DAYS EuroCup season in six years eager to use its previous experience and advance past the regular season for the first time since the 2016-17 campaign. The new format should benefit Lietkabelis, whose thousands of diehard fans push the Lithuanian powerhouse to its limits in home games. Founded in 1964 in the city of Panevezys, it competed in the lower divisions in the former Soviet Union for many years and carried the name of a successful local cable factory. For more than three decades, Lietkabelis was one of the strongest basketball clubs in Lithuania and some of the finest Lithuanian players wore its jersey, including Jonas Kazlauskas, Raimundas Civilis, Rimas Kurtinaitis and Algirdas Brazys. Lietkabellis had its best years in the 1980s when it twice won Lithuanian League championships within the Soviet Union and also reached the regional Lithuanian Cup final. During that span, Lietkabelis also played in the USSR’s second division and after Lithuania became an independent state, the club was among the co-founders of its top basketball league in 1993. The factory stopped sponsoring the club in 1996, which brought the first of seven name changes – Kalnapilis, Sema, Panevezys, Preventa-Malsena, Aukstaitija and Techasas – from 1996 through 2012. The club made its European competition debut in the 1999-00 Korac Cup. In 2012, the club went back to its proud name Lietkabelis and after two seasons returned to the Lithuanian League playoffs. The 2016-17 season was the best to date in Lietkabelis history as it not only debuted in the EuroCup, but advanced into the Top 16 before reaching the finals in both the Lithuanian League and Cup, where it fell at the hands of Zalgiris Kaunas.  Lietkabelis put together a 16-8 record in the 2019-20 Lithuanian League - including a victory over Zalgiris - for third place in the standings when the season was called due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Last season, Lietkabelis returned to the EuroCup and ranked fifth in its regular season group with a 2-8 record. It made it to the Lithuanian League semifinals and the Lithuanian Cup final, but once again Zalgiris stood in its way with a 76-69 victory. Lietkabelis proudly represents a basketball-crazy country in a marquee competition, so it can be expected to show that character and commitment on the court.