With 41 seconds left in Maryland men’s basketball’s final home game of the 2021-22 season, interim head coach Danny Manning called timeout with his team up 11.
Three Terps entered the court as substitutions, including Pavlo Dziuba.
Dziuba took the floor in his custom yellow and blue shoes — with the Ukraine map on the heel of his left, and the word ‘Ukraine’ written on the heel of his right — in support of his war-torn home country.
Dziuba high-fived Eric Ayala, tapped Fatts Russell on the back, and let out a brief smile for a moment as the XFINITY Center crowd erupted in support of Dziuba, a native of Kyiv, Ukraine.
“It was really nice, I really appreciate all of [the fans],” Dziuba said. They supported me, they texted me on Instagram, and they were asking how my parents are doing.”
Dziuba logged a minute on the court in a game for the first time since Feb. 10, 2022 — 14 days before Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“I heard a lot of things, that it’s gonna take only three days,” Dziuba said. “In three days, nothing happened. I was like, ‘Russia sucks.’”
On the night of Putin’s announcement, Maryland had a game scheduled against Indiana.
“We were actually on the road in Indiana … we all found out waking up that morning, and everyone aside from him just tried to be there for him,” teammate Brett Karkus said. “But you could tell he was definitely going through it. In-and-out of the room, speaking to people, I think he was trying to get in touch with friends and family as much as possible.”
While playing basketball in the United States, Dziuba could do nothing but watch from afar as the Russian military invaded his home country. He struggled to balance being an athlete and a student while also worrying about his family in Ukraine.
“For the first four months it was really hard to focus on school and basketball,” Dziuba said. “I was only thinking [about] what’s going on in Ukraine, but then I started trying to focus in more on basketball … basketball really helped a lot.”
Meanwhile, Dziuba had to acclimate himself to a brand-new coaching staff in College Park.
On March 21, Kevin Willard was announced as the new head coach of the men’s basketball program. Willard replaced Manning, who took over in an interim role following the resignation of Mark Turgeon in the middle of the 2021-22 season.
Dziuba transferred to College Park following his 2020-21 freshman season at Arizona State. In a span of two seasons, Dziuba played under three different head coaches — Bobby Hurley, Turgeon, and Manning. Willard became the fourth.
“I feel like I [was] used to it because I changed a lot of coaches, had a lot of coaches,” Dziuba said.
When Willard first met Dziuba, it wasn’t Dziuba’s basketball skill that initially stood out to him. Rather, it was the way he conducted himself as a person amidst one of the most challenging situations any student-athlete could face.
“Understanding what he was going through, and seeing still how hard he worked and how much he wanted to be here, really showed a lot about his character because it is an extremely tough situation,” Willard said.
This past summer, Dziuba participated on Ukraine’s team in the 2022 FIBA U20 European Championship. The tournament took place July 16-24, in Podgorica, Montenegro.
While in Europe, Dziuba saw his mom for one day. It was the lone time he’s visited any member of his family since the war began.
“When I [saw] her, I was crying, she was crying,” Dziuba said.
Starting at the end of May, Russia began to take over Ukraine’s internet. As a result, Ukraine put an internet schedule in place, which created difficulties for Dziuba to reach his family. Dziuba’s family was left without internet access throughout the entire month of August.
It’s not easy, but now, Dziuba can speak to his family on the phone every day.
“For example — for four hours, they’re turning it on, and in this amount of time, I can talk to them, I can text them,” Dziuba said.
After months of Russian encroachment, on Sept. 11, Ukrainian forces pushed the Russian military back. Ukraine reclaimed over a thousand square miles.
On Nov. 11, Ukraine took back control of Kherson from Russian forces.
“It’s a really big city so I’m really proud of them,” Dziuba said. “I hope we’ll get more and more cities back.”
The war in Ukraine has put Dziuba under immense stress. But those who know him said Dziuba hasn’t changed a bit.
“Before he was such a great person to have around, just always being nice and uplifting with positive energy and he’s just continued to do that, he hasn’t ever stopped doing that,” Karkus said. “And that’s really impressive.”
Dziuba’s basketball family has been by his side every step of the way.
“That’s what a great thing about sports and a great thing about teammates is they haven’t done anything special besides be there,” Willard said. “He knows that he can lean on them, hang out with them … a great thing about being part of a team is that Pav knows that he has 12 other teammates that will always be there for him.”
