Early Years
Bogut was born to Croatian immigrants Mišo and Ankica (née Jurišić) Bogut in the Melbourne suburb of Endeavour Hills. His father is from Osijek and his mother was a native of Karlovac. Bogut grew up playing Australian rules football and tennis in addition to basketball. In his childhood, he patterned his basketball game after Toni Kukoc. As a 15-year-old, he was cut from the Victoria junior state representative team. That experience apparently drove him to improve; he later went on to attend the Australian Institute of Sport, with whom he would tour the United States in 2001 and 2002. In his last season at AIS, he averaged 29 points, 14.5 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game while competing in the SEABL. He went on to lead the Australian team that won the 2003 FIBA Junior World Championships, and was named the tournament MVP.
Read more about this topic: Andrew Bogut
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