THE Sarunas Yasikevicius of Fenerbahce defeated George Bardzokas of Olympiacos in the relative “counter” and became a coach of the year in Euroleague For the 2024-25 season.
Thus, Sarunas Yasikevicius became the first Lithuanian technician to receive the Euroleague award, named after the legendary Alexander Gomelski. The former Panathinaikos player won first place in the vote, as he had to deal with several injuries during the season-led Fenerbahce to second place in the regular season with records of 23 wins-11 defeats.
At the same time, the 49 -year -old coach wrote a story as he becomes the first man to win Euroleague as a player and later became the best coach in the competition.
It is recalled that the veteran guard celebrated four Euroleague titles with Barcelona (2003), Maccabi Tel Aviv (2004, 2005) and Panathinaikos (2009), while becoming a more valuable Final Four player in 2005.
Yasikevicius left in second place in the vote the coach of Olympiacos, George Bardzokas, while Gordon Herbert of Bayern Munich and Thiago Spliter of Paris have been in third place.
The Lithuanian technician learned the news when he was announced by the team’s people in the Fenerbhche training and was surprised, with the team players applauding and then giving him a “Faturo”!
Here are the moments when our Head Coach Sarunas Jasikevicius found out he was named EuroLeague Coach of the Year. #YellowLegacy #EuroLeague pic.twitter.com/mUxjOTEn9c
– Fenerbahce Beko (@fbbasketball) April 17, 2025
Yasikevicius is now the 13th different holder of the Euroleague coach for the year. Only Zeljko Obradovic (three times), George Bardzokas (three), Ecclesiastical Messina (two), Pablo Lasso (two) and Dimitris Itoudis (two) have distributed this particular distinction more than once.
Other coaches who have previously won the Alexander Gomelski Award are Pini Gerson, Dusko Vujoosevic, Xavi Pasqual, Dusan Ivkovic, David Blatt, Ergkin Ataman.