KAUNAS (Lithuania) - Lithuania have confirmed an extended list of 32 players ahead of the upcoming FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 European Qualifiers.

The squad includes Arnas Butkevicius, Eimantas Bendzius, Tomas Dimsa, Lukas Lekavicius and Gytis Masiulis with the quintet part of the team that competed at the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament 2020 on home soil earlier this summer.

Lithuania failed to qualify for the Olympics for the first time since regaining independence and the number nine ranked team in the world look to get back on track.

"The list is long as we didn't want to miss any player who could be useful for the Lithuanian national team," said new head coach Kazys Maksvytis, who was appointed recently. 

"Also, there's still time to shorten the squad. It's the start of the season so we'll take into consideration player form and, of course, possible injuries. We made the squad bigger at this point, and this is actually the easy part of the job. A much tougher task will be to trim it down and eventually select the final 12."

Three Zalgiris teammates have been included in the list with Lithuania hoping to have Lekavicius, Marek Blazevic and Edgaras Ulanovas available for the second game.

Lithuania will host Bulgaria in their opening game on November 26 before traveling to face Czech Republic three days later to round out the first window.

FIBA