Basketball's growth in Lithuania received another significant boost in 1934 with the opening of the Physical Culture Palace in Kaunas. The indoor hall at the expensively constructed complex, which now serves as the main campus for the Lithuanian Sports University, was mainly intended for tennis but was quickly also found to be ideal for basketball, and served as a catalyst for a rapid growth in the sport's popularity.
Lithuania in its modern form was still a young nation, and the country's long-serving President Antanas Smetona was conscious of the need to develop a national identity. With that in mind, a World Lithuanian Congress was organized in 1935, aimed at promoting and celebrating the country's culture with the active inclusion of ethnic Lithuanians from all over the world.
Significantly, that included a sizeable Lithuanian-American community that already numbered an estimated 275,000 people following mass emigration in the late 19th century. Many of those new arrivals had settled around Chicago, whose community decided to fund a team of athletes to take part in the congress in Kaunas. The traveling group included some genuine stars of the basketball world, notably Notre Dame standout Moose Krause (born Edward Kriauciunas), his brother Feliksas, and the cerebral lawyer and baskeball coach Konstantinas Savickas.
Their input provided a significant and much-needed boost to the growing Lithuanian basketball scene. The need for improvement was obvious after an embarrassing 123-10 defeat to neighbouring Latvia, which was crowned inaugural European champion in the very first FIBA EuroBasket in 1935.
Savickas became the national coach and quickly made the team more competitive, with a far closer loss to Latvia – 31-10 – demonstrating the progress that had been made. Lithuania also applied to become a member of FIBA and was therefore eligible to take part in international tournaments, starting with the 1937 EuroBasket in Latvia.
