A third signee has joined the University of Tennessee at Martin men’s basketball program as Gabrielius Bubnys is set to make his Skyhawk debut during the 2026-27 season.
A 6-7, 205-pound forward, Bubnys will be a freshman next season under UT Martin head coach Jeremy Shulman. The Marijampolė, Lithuania native graduated from Marijampolė Rygiškių Jono Gymnasium and currently plays for the BC Rytas Vilnius second team in the Lithuanian NKL, averaging 11.7 points, 2.5 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.3 steals over 31 contests.
“Gabrielius is a player I’ve been excited to coach for years,” Shulman said. “He has such an incredible mentality, work ethic and love of the game – reminiscent of our returner Vladimir Khryapa. He is an elite shooter on the wing and is another from our close Lithuania connections.”
Bubnys is shooting a scorching 55 percent (133-of-242) from the field this season, including a 40.2 percent accuracy (51-for-127) from beyond the three-point arc. He went off for a season-high 34 points on 13-of-20 shooting (including 7-for-12 from three-point range) to go along with five rebounds, five assists and four blocks against Stekas on Dec. 22 and also poured in 24 points (aided by 6-of-9 shooting from three-point land) in the Oct. 2 season opener against P. Olimpas. He swiped a remarkable seven steals against Vytis on Oct. 11.
In January 2026, Bubnys took part in the Avance Global Cup 10-team tournament held in Malaga, Spain. He played his first season in the Lithuanian NKL for the Suduva Mantinga Marijampole in 2024-25, accounting for a dominant 36-point, 22-rebound, seven-assist performance against KKMI.
Bubnys averaged 7.7 points per outing for the Lithuanian National Team at the 2025 FIBA U18 EuroBasket event held in Belgrade, Serbia. He scored in double figures three times in that tournament, including 18 points against North Macedonia (July 26), 15 points against Greece (Aug. 2) and 13 points against Israel (Aug. 3). He also showed out at the 2025 FIBA Next Gen Hoops Invitational, averaging 18.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists over two outings for BC Rytas, including a monster 26-point, 11-rebound effort against the Grind Session on June 4 in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Additionally, Bubnys averaged 18.3 points, 5.8 rebounds and 1.8 assists in four games for Rytas Vilnius in the 2025 Youth Basketball Champions League event held in Manisa, Turkey. He was named to the YCBL All-Star Five team after helping the squad to the tournament championship by shooting 64.1 percent (25-of-39) from the floor with a 60 percent (9-for-15) effort from three-point range and an 87.5 percent clip (14-of-16) from the free throw line. His best game of the 2025 YBCL competition came on April 24 as he accumulated 22 points and 10 rebounds against Manisa BBSK.
Bubnys joins Reid Conley (Chattanooga, Tenn./Chattanooga Preparatory Academy) and Armandas Bancevicius (Kaunas, Lithuania/Kauno Santaros Gimnazija) in the Skyhawks’ 2026 signing class. That trio enters a UT Martin program that won 22 games last season (tied for the school record) and finished one Ohio Valley Conference victory shy of the most in the program history, making an OVC Championship semifinals appearance for the third time in the past four years.
