{"id":901278,"date":"2026-04-25T00:17:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T05:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/25\/rhode-island-basketball-gets-commitment-from-lithuanian-forward\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T00:17:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T05:17:13","slug":"rhode-island-basketball-gets-commitment-from-lithuanian-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/25\/rhode-island-basketball-gets-commitment-from-lithuanian-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhode Island basketball gets commitment from Lithuanian forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The University of Rhode Island\u2019s\u00a0second\u00a0men\u2019s basketball\u00a0commitment of the week out of the transfer portal<\/a> should offer some immediate frontcourt impact.<\/p>\n

Matas\u00a0Deniusas<\/a>, the Rookie of the Year in the Ohio Valley Conference during his lone season at Tennessee Martin, pledged to the Rams<\/a> through a post on his Instagram account Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

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Deniusas\u00a0is a 6-foot-9\u00a0forward\u00a0who averaged 12.5 points and 5.2 rebounds\u00a0in 2025-26.\u00a0He\u00a0hit for\u00a0double figures 24 times and netted at least 20 points three times, including 25 in a win over Charleston Southern.\u00a0Deniusas\u00a0closed sixth in his league in blocked shot percentage and\u00a0connected at 33.6% from 3-point range, hitting multiple times from beyond the arc in 13 games.<\/p>\n

Deniusas\u00a0selected URI ahead of Atlantic 10 rival Richmond and Minnesota. He also held reported interest from George Mason, Seton Hall, Kansas State and more.\u00a0Deniusas\u00a0took a recent visit with the Rams and\u00a0ultimately decided\u00a0to spend the 2026-27 season in Kingston.<\/p>\n

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Matas Deniusas of the UT Martin Skyhawks shoots against Ladji Dembele of the UNLV Rebels in November. Deniusas has pledged to URI for the upcoming season.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Deniusas is a Lithuanian international who has represented his country at the U17 and U18 levels. His most recent tournament was the FIBA EuroBasket\u00a0last summer, and\u00a0Deniusas\u00a0averaged 8.2 points and 4.8 rebounds over six games. He needed just 20 minutes to rack up 12 points, 11 rebounds and four blocked shots in an impressive outing against North Macedonia.<\/p>\n

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Deniusas played professionally in his home country with BC Rytas Vilnius II, appearing in 41 games in the 2024-25 season.\u00a0His eight double-figure outings included 17 points in his last playoff game, and Deniusas shot 36.8% from\u00a03-point range. He\u00a0elected\u00a0to leave for the NCAA ranks and\u00a0signed\u00a0for a Skyhawks program that closed 22-11 overall and 13-7 in the OVC last season.<\/p>\n

Deniusas\u00a0counts a\u00a0couple of\u00a0international ties to URI.\u00a0He\u2019ll\u00a0be teammates next season with Nedas\u00a0Raupelis<\/a>, a fellow frontcourt player from Lithuania, who will enroll as a\u00a0freshman. The Rams\u00a0also\u00a0have recent connections with that nation through forward\u00a0Gilvydas\u00a0Biruta, who was a URI player under former coach Dan Hurley and staff member under\u00a0current Rams coach Archie Miller.<\/p>\n

Deniusas\u00a0joins Towson guard Dylan Williamson<\/a> in the URI transfer class. The Rams secured a commitment from the\u00a0redshirt junior\u00a0earlier this week, a perimeter scorer who should offer some experience outside.\u00a0He was a double-digit scorer last season who collected 25 points in a nonconference win over URI.<\/p>\n

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The Rams focused primarily on retention early this spring and were able to keep veterans Jonah Hinton, Jahmere Tripp and Mouhamed Sow.\u00a0Jalen Harper, Barrett Loer and Javon Perry will all return after varying amounts of playing time during their\u00a0freshman\u00a0campaigns.\u00a0Damone King and\u00a0Moek\u00a0Icke were the lone scholarship players who entered the portal, with King recently committing to Eastern Kentucky<\/a>.<\/p>\n

bk***<\/span>@***************<\/span>al.com<\/span>;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas” data-yga=”{“yLinkElement”:”context_link”,”yModuleName”:”content-canvas”,”yLinkText”:”bk***<\/span>@***************<\/span>al.com<\/span>“}”>bk***<\/span>@***************<\/span>al.com<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On X: @BillKoch25\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Lithuanian forward Matas Deniusas commits to URI basketball<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a> Michele Center<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Basketball The University of Rhode Island\u2019s\u00a0second\u00a0men\u2019s basketball\u00a0commitment of the week out of the transfer portal should offer some immediate frontcourt impact. Matas\u00a0Deniusas, the Rookie of the Year in the Ohio Valley Conference during his lone season at Tennessee Martin, pledged to the Rams through a post on his Instagram account Thursday afternoon. Advertisement Deniusas\u00a0is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":901279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124942,3681,368,32927],"tags":[16302],"class_list":{"0":"post-901278","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"category-basketball","9":"category-island","10":"category-rhode","11":"tag-nba"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}