Portland State Men’s Basketball has signed Gantas Križanauskas for the 2026-27 season, as announced by Head Coach Jase Coburn on May 26.
Križanauskas, a 6-foot-4 guard from Vilnius, Lithuania, joins Portland State after playing for the Rytas Vilnius Club and representing the U20 Lithuania Men’s National Team. “We are thrilled to have Gantas join our program,” said Coburn. “He has some high-quality characteristics that we look for in our players. We love his competitive spirit, his fire and his love of the game of basketball. His defensive and athletic abilities will let him fit right in with our style. Offensively, he is very skilled. He can dribble, pass, shoot and make plays for others.”
Rytas Vilnius competes in the Lithuanian Basketball League, which is considered the top tier of basketball in Lithuania. Križanauskas began with Rytas-MRU in Lithuania’s third-tier league during the 2022-23 season before moving to BC Rytas-2 Vilnius in the second-tier league. He first played with Rytas Vilnius’s top team during the 2023-24 season.
In his most recent season with BC Rytas-2, Križanauskas averaged 10 points, 3.9 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.2 steals per game over 32 games while playing an average of 26.6 minutes per contest; he also appeared in seven games with Rytas Vilnius’s main squad.
Internationally, Križanauskas played for Lithuania’s national under-18 team at the FIBA U18 EuroBasket in 2024 where he averaged ten points per game along with contributions on rebounds and assists. He later represented Lithuania’s under-20 team at FIBA U20 EuroBasket in 2025, where he averaged over five points per game as part of a silver medal-winning squad.
Križanauskas joins a Portland State program led by Big Sky Coach of the Year Jase Coburn that won the Big Sky Conference regular season championship during the previous year (20 wins–11 losses overall; conference record: thirteen wins–five losses).
