Background
He was born in Šiauliai, and a big part of his basketball career was spent there.
He was born in Šiauliai, and a big part of his basketball career was spent there.
Early career
The Lithuanian national basketball team traditionally replaces the head coach with his assistant, this happened when Vladas Garastas was replaced by his assistant coach Jonas Kazlauskas. The story was repeated in 2001, when the successor of Kazlauskas was his assistant coach Antanas Sireika. Sireika played for British Columbia Šiauliai, later he became the playing head coach of the team, in 1994 he ended his career as a player, and started coaching full-time.
Big results came fast, the underdog Šiauliai, became 3rd place winners in the LKL. In 1997 Kazlauskas became head-coach of the Lithuanian National Basketball Team, and invited Sireika to join the Lithuanian national squad as an assistant.
In 2001, Kazlauskas retired from LTU national team, and gave his place to Sireika. The same year, Sireika made an important decision: he left his home in Šiauliai, and moved to Kaunas, to coach British Columbia Žalgiris.
Setbacks
Since 2003, British Columbia Žalgiris started to fade away from all the Euroleague glory they had just a few years ago. Žalgiris" Euroleague results got worse every year.
In the 2005-2006 season Sireika was dealing with huge amount of criticism aimed at him, because of poor results in Euroleague and British Columbia Lietuvos Rytas was at the top of the Lithuanian league standings.
After the game Sireika left the team Lithuanian team took 5th place and even more criticism was aimed at Sireika. He had his last chance at an International Basketball Federation World Championship in 2006.
Lithuania finished 3rd in the group entering 1/8 finals. in the quarterfinals they were defeated by Spain, and in fifth through eighth place games they lost to Turkey, Lithuania took 7th place, and Sireika resigned.
Unics
In 2006 summer, Unics Kazan introduced Sireika as their new head coach, the Lithuanian trio: Lavrinovič brothers and Saulius Štombergas led Unics into Uleb cup semifinals, but the team lost to Real Madrid and did not enter the final. In the Russian Basketball Super League Unics surprised the league by finishing 2nd.
After the Euroleague champions CSKA Moscow, and overcoming teams like Dynamo Moscow, Khimki and Triumph. The 2007-2008 season did not start out well, as Russia"s basketball experts had expected, Unics was 8th in the Russian Super League, Sireika was dismissed from the head coaching position and moved to assistant.
Lietuvos Rytas
But just after 2 months, he resigned and became the head coach of Šiauliai.