[2] After his parents divorced when he was eleven, Kavaliauskas lived with his mother, grandmother, and younger sister Eglė in a small apartment in Vilnius.

Once the situation became safer, Antanas returned home, but remembers seeing Soviet troops for several more months before they finally left the country.

[3] Despite the fact that he was neither a very good student nor an exceptional basketball player (averaging only 5 minutes per game for his club team), Kavaliauskas's height (2.08 m (6 ft 10 in)) brought him to the attention of a scout, who recommended him to the coach of the basketball team at Barton County Community College in Great Bend, Kansas, United States.

[4] After being recruited by South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia Tech, Kavaliauskas chose to attend Texas A&M University to play under coach Billy Gillispie.

[4] Gillispie had originally intended to recruit another player on the Barton County team, but after watching several practices he was very impressed with the mobility of such a large man as Kavaliauskas.

Convinced that he was the reason the team lost, Kavaliauskas found a photo of Mitchell's game-winning shot and hung it in his locker as a daily reminder of what he needs to work on.

[7] In a historic moment on February 3, 2007, the Aggies became the first Big 12 South team (in 32 attempts) to ever beat the then-Number 6 Kansas Jayhawks at Allen Fieldhouse.

Less than two days later the team beat then-Number 25 Texas, their twenty-first straight home win, making them the sole leader of the Big 12.

[8] After a Dallas Morning News article profiled Kavaliauskas, mentioning that he had only seen his mother twice since he moved to the USA, many Texas A&M fans inquired about raising money to reunite the family temporarily.

Texas A&M discovered that the NCAA-financed Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund could be used, and paid for Birute Kavaliauskiene to travel to the US for the first time to see her son play in his last home game for A&M.

In the 2013 off-season, Kavaliauskas moved to Spain and signed with Bilbao Basket, team that he played against previous season as a player of VEF Riga.

[18] During the same summer, he also received identical contract offer from the Rytas biggest rivals in Lithuania, Žalgiris Kaunas, but decided to stay loyal to his hometown club.

[2] Kavaliauskas also represented the senior Lithuania men's national basketball team at the 2012 Summer Olympics, averaging 4.6 points and 3.2 rebounds per game there.