As VCU’s Max Shulga prepares for NCAA Tournament in Denver, his heart still lies in homeland Ukraine

Thoughts of home drift in and out for Max Shulga, but life at Virginia Commonwealth moves too fast to leave much room to feel the pain from 5,000 miles away.

In rare quiet moments, the escape fades. And the VCU star will let it wash back over him, sirens erupting again this week in his birthplace of Kyiv, Ukraine, where the war that’s prevented him from returning to the culture he knows continues.

Shulga sat at a locker inside Ball Arena on Wednesday afternoon with an NCAA Tournament game to play Thursday, an ocean removed from the geopolitical conflict. There is nothing to be done here for “us regular people,” as he put it. No way to truly help, as a full ceasefire still hasn’t been reached in Ukraine.

“I can’t just be thinking about it every single day,” Shulga told The Denver Post on Wednesday, voice slightly resigned.

“Because, I’m just going to go crazy,” he continued. “You know what I mean?”