It is the rare college basketball offseason in which a team’s notable late roster pickup is its leading scorer from the prior year.

Hawaii men’s hoops made Gytis Nemeiksa the exception on Monday as it announced the forward from Lithuania will return for the upcoming 2025-26 season.

Nemeiksa, a rugged player who had been in the NCAA transfer portal for months, was granted an additional year of eligibility and elected to come back to the Rainbow Warriors. The NCAA has recently been forced to reinterpret eligibility for players who spent time at non-NCAA institutions like junior colleges or in Europe.

“Run it back,” the UH’s social media accounts posted with a picture of Nemeiksa.

Nemeiksa, who came to UH from Xavier last summer, averaged a team-high 12.3 points per game on 48.8% shooting and was the group’s second-leading rebounder at 5.6 per game.

His floor time was inconsistent, however, and he started only 14 of 31 games played as Harry Rouhliadeff took over the front end of the forward rotation at midseason. But he closed strong in the final road trip of the season, the only time he registered back-to-back 20-point games.

Now Nemeiska rejoins an almost completely rebuilt roster. The only other rotation holdovers are point guard Aaron Hunkin-Claytor and Rouhliadeff, plus reserve guard A.J. Economou.

With assistant Gibson Johnson taking a grander role in recruiting for coach Eran Ganot’s staff, UH brought in six Division I transfers plus one player each from the Division II, junior college and prep school ranks.

It is a critical year for UH hoops. It is the program’s final run through the Big West Conference and Ganot is on the final year of his contract. The ‘Bows are coming off a 15-16 (7-13 Big West) campaign in which they missed qualifying for the conference tournament.

Big West announces ‘Bold Week’ matchups

UH will play two conference home games in early December as part of the Big West’s “Bold Week” to launch league play early in the season and spread out its 20-game portion of the slate.

The ‘Bows will host UC Davis on Dec. 4 and Cal State Fullerton on Dec. 6. They are the first games officially displayed by UH for next season.

Last year the UH men played their first game at Long Beach State in early December for the debut of Bold Week.

UH has yet to announce its nonconference schedule, though Utah Tech, in its own release, recently announced it will play in a four-team event at the Stan Sheriff Center Nov. 12-15 along with UH, Manhattan and Mississippi Valley State.

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.