Justė Veronika Jocytė (born 19 November 2005) is a Lithuanian professional basketball player for Lyon ASVEL women's club of the Ligue Féminine de Basketball and its youth academy. She plays at the

shooting guard The shooting guard (SG), also known as the two, two guard or off guard,Shooting guards are 6'3"–6'7"BBC Sports academy URL last accessed 2006-09-09. is one of the five traditional positions in a regulation basketball game. A shooting guard's m ...

and small forward positions.

Professional career

On 11 October 2019, Jocytė made a solid debut in the

Lithuanian Women's Basketball League The Lithuanian Women's Basketball League (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Moterų Krepšinio Lyga) has seven teams. History Lietuvos telekomas/TEO/VIČI-Aistės have won the most championships, with 15. 2007–08 season teams * Kaunas „Aistės-Atleta ...

, scoring 21 points, grabbing 5 rebounds, making 3 steals and dishing out 5 assists, and led her team Neptūnas Klaipėda to a 81–59 victory versus the Kibirkštis–Viči Vilnius. In November 2019, Jocytė signed a three-years deal with the Tony Parker's Lyon ASVEL women's club and joined its youth team in the same month. On 8 December 2019, being 14 years and 19 days old, Jocytė became the youngest player to debut in the Ligue Féminine de Basketball, which is the top women's

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

professional basketball league. On 18 December 2019, Jocytė became the youngest player (14 years and 29 days old) to debut in the modern EuroLeague Women, which is the highest professional basketball league in Europe for women's clubs.

National team career

At just 13 years old, Jocytė led the Lithuanian U16 Women's National Team to the silver medal during the

2019 FIBA U16 Women's European Championship The 2019 FIBA U16 Women's European Championship was the 31st edition of the Women's European basketball championship for national under-16 teams. It was held from 22 to 30 August in Skopje, North Macedonia. The top five teams qualified for the ...

in North Macedonia. She was named to the All-Star Five after averaging 19.6 points, 8.3 rebounds and 2.1 assists in the tournament. On 8 October 2019, Jocytė was invited to the Lithuania women's national basketball team. Still being 13 years old, she made her debut in the primary women's national team on 14 November 2019 during the

EuroBasket Women 2019 qualification This page describes the qualification procedure for EuroBasket Women 2019. Qualifying draw The draw for the qualification took place on 4 July 2017 in Munich, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country ...

game in Kėdainiai and scored 4 points, grabbed 1 rebound and dished out 3 assists, helping her national team to defeat the Albania women's national basketball team 108–43. On 14 August 2022, Jocytė led the national Lithuania basketball team and won gold in the FIBA U18 Women's European Championship 2022 finals against Spain.

Personal life

Jocytė was born in

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, the United States. Her father, Alvydas Jocys, played basketball during his studies in Nebraska College, in the United States. When the family returned to Palanga,

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

, her father continued to play the game in the amateur league. Her paternal uncle played basketball professionally for

KK Olimpas KK Olimpas is a basketball team based in Plungė, Lithuania. The team currently competes in the third-tier Regional Basketball League (RKL). The club previously competed in the first-tier Lithuanian Basketball League (LKL) and second-tier Natio ...

. She began attending basketball trainings in Palanga, her first coach was Daiva Mažionienė. After two years she moved to Klaipėda and began training with coach Ramunė Kumpienė.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jocyte, Juste 2005 births Basketball players from Washington, D.C. Living people Lithuanian expatriate basketball people in France Lithuanian women's basketball players Shooting guards Small forwards