ATHENS, Greece - Former Lebanon Valley College star Andy Panko '99 has made a move to one of the biggest basketball clubs in Europe, signing with Greek and Euroleague power Panathinaikos Athens.

Panko is coming off a career year with Lagun Aro in Spain, where he earned league MVP honors with 18.9 points per game (a league-best). At age 34, the 6'9" power forward is the oldest MVP in that league's history.

Although Panko has spent most of his professional career in Spain, he's no stranger to Greece, having spent the 2006 season playing for PAOK in Thessaloniki, a city in the northern part of the country.

With Panathinaikos, Panko will have a chance to play in the powerful Euroleague, which consists of the top teams from around the continent and is analogous to soccer's UEFA Champions League. Panathinaikos has arguably been the most dominant team in Europe over the past two decades, winning six European championships since 1996. Three of those Euroleague championships have come since 2007, and they made the final four in 2012. Panathinaikos finished as Greek League runners-up this season, snapping an incredible streak of nine straight titles.

Interestingly enough, Panko isn't even the only central Pennsylvanian to play for Panathinaikos - Lithuanian point guard Šarunas Jasikevicius spent his teen years in the United States attending Solanco High School before starring at the University of Maryland.

Panko is the former NCAA Division III player of the year and remains LVC's all-time leading scorer with 2,515 points. He was named to d3hoops.com's “Team of the Decade” in 2010 as one of D-III's all-time greats. After graduating, he had tryouts with the Atlanta Hawks and Los Angeles Lakers, but caught on as a star with the minor-league North Dakota Wizards, where he was named MVP of the CBA in 2003 before moving to Spain. He helped Lagun Aro achieve promotion to the top-level league, and they achieved their first-ever Spanish playoff appearance in 2012.