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Message: [QUOTE="Scott11, post: 4611066, member: 6797"] One year I was invited to a Syracuse basketball dinner in Boston with some of the basketball staff and fundraisers. I was seated next to Marius Janulis. We really hit it off and the next weekend I was playing in a charity three on three basketball tournament that supports treatment for a childhood disease called fragile X. I jokingly asked him if he wanted to play on my team and much to my surprise he loved the idea. He was living and working around the Boston area at that time. He ended up playing in my team for the next three or four years until he moved back home. It was amazing to play with a guy who was so talented. He was only out of school for about four or five years at that time and still was incredibly sharp. One year, our team ended up playing against another team that had Walter McCarty on it. They both noted it was the first time that they had been on the basketball court together since the finals in 1996 and both of them were very motivated and put on a show. Unfortunately former Celtic Al Jefferson’s brother was on his team and I had to check him. He weighed 260 pounds and absolutely dominated me. But both Marius and Walter were great and the whole gym stopped to watch our game even though four games were supposed to be happening. McCarty was guarding Marius and Marius torched him both outside and off the dribble. Guys could simply not check Marius. We think of him as basically an outside shooter, but against basically high school, college players and post college players in this tournament, he could score at will off the dribble. He also had an amazing low post game. And he was intense! One game, my cousin missed a layup to lose the game after Marius had made an amazing pass, and he went over and punched him in the arm hard. Absolutely hilarious, although maybe not for my cousin. The next year in reaction to my cousin’s missed layup, he invited his brother-in-law and another friend to play with us. Both of those guys had played professionally overseas. It was obviously the farthest my team ever went. I think we lost in the semifinals. Most importantly, Marius is a great guy who I continue to be friendly with to this day. He loves Syracuse basketball and had a huge smile when I brought up the Iona shot, which I watched in Jim Calhoun’s bar when I worked in Connecticut. (Calhoun is a douche, but that is a story for another time.) For a long time he complained that it inexplicably was hard to find his game winner on the Internet. He follows the team, though, not as closely as many of us do. and he runs his own company and has a wonderful wife and family. [/QUOTE]

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