Babur Choul’s transition to the point-guard position appears to be trending in a positive direction.
Choul finished with 16 points, five rebounds, two blocked shots and a game-high nine assists, helping Grand Island Senior High beat visiting Fremont 65-55 Friday night. The 6-foot-5 senior’s emergence as a distributor coincided with the Islanders’ best performance of the season, according to coach Jeremiah Slough.
“Bab had never played the point-guard position before and he had some growing pains before Christmas, but what he’s figured out is that sometimes playing slower is faster,” Slough said. “He’s doing a much better job of just playing slower with the basketball — not over-driving gaps — and when he’s putting the ball on the floor, he’s looking to create for others.
“I think that the nine assists tonight is a direct reflection of that and his numbers stayed the same. He’s not losing production in the points column by assisting for others and we’re a much better basketball team that way.”
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Victor Fisher Jr. scored a game-high 21 points on 9-of-13 shooting to go with 12 rebounds and two blocks for Grand Island (4-7), which won its second straight. Ethan Coslor added 17 points as the Islanders shot 45.3% (24 of 53) from the floor.
Choul’s feed to Fisher for a break-away dunk gave Grand Island its first lead at 18-17 with 5:50 left in the second quarter.
“I was just looking to push the ball, looking upcourt to see my teammates wide-open running lanes and I had to get them the ball,” Choul said. “All week in practice, we talked about shooting open shots and putting pressure on the rim.”
With Fisher and Choul carrying much of the scoring load for the Islanders this season, Choul said it was good to see Coslor step forward as a third scoring option. Coslor finished 4 of 7 from 3-point range against Fremont.
“(Coslor) came up huge today, shooting all the shots that he made,” Choul said. “We’ve just been telling Ethan and Broxton (Barrientos) all week in practice, ‘Keep shooting, keep shooting.’
“When Vic is scoring in the paint, a lot of people collapse on him and the 3s are wide open. We have to take advantage of that.”
Maurice Bryant and Levi Toben scored 12 points apiece for Fremont (5-6). Kieryn Grothe added 11 points and seven rebounds for the Tigers, who made their first five 3-point attempts and led 15-11 with 2:22 left in the first quarter.
“Fremont came out and shot the ball well in the first quarter — they started 5 for 5 from 3 — and our kids didn’t panic,” Slough said. “They just stayed the course. The first few games of the year, that situation would’ve snowballed on us.”
Instead, the Islanders limited Fremont to seven second-quarter points on 2-of-14 shooting to take a 31-24 halftime lead. The Tigers shot 29.3% (12 of 41) over the final 24 minutes.
“We just did a great job of locking down, defensively,” Slough said. “Ethan Coslor and Carter Bernal were phenomenal on the Bryant kid — they made every single thing tough for him — and our guys behind them did a great job of gapping up.”
Grand Island forged its largest lead at 43-27 with four minutes left in the third quarter when Bernal completed a three-point play after scoring on a breakaway layup. Fremont was able to cut its deficit to 55-47 on Keaton’s driving basket with 2:36 to play, but the Tigers couldn’t get any closer as a free throw by Cody Garrett pushed the Islanders’ advantage back to 63-49 with 31.9 seconds remaining.
GISH committed five of its 12 turnovers in the fourth quarter against Fremont’s full-court pressure. However, the Islanders also made 5 of 11 shots from the field in the fourth and were 5 of 8 from the free-throw line in the final 3:07 to hold on.
“We told our kids in the fourth quarter that (Fremont) was going to get pressure ready and we weren’t perfect against it, but what we didn’t do was we didn’t panic and we didn’t give up layups on the back end when we did turn it over,” Slough said. “We did a good job of mistake-response. We talk to our kids so much about mistake-response: You can’t control what just happened, but you sure as heck can control what’s about to happen.
“Our kids did a really, really good job of that all the way around.”
Grand Island returns to action at 4:30 p.m. Saturday with a road game at Omaha Buena Vista — a team that edged the Islanders 61-58 in double overtime back on Dec. 5 in the season opener for both teams.
“We’ve got a heck of a challenge (Saturday), but I think our kids are hungry for that success,” Slough said. “We told them that for every 1,000 people that can handle failure, there’s one that can handle success. It’s easy to show up hungry when you get beat, but we’ll see how we respond to success.”
Grand Island 65, Fremont 55
FREMONT (5-6)
Maurice Bryant 3-12 3-4 12, Kieryn Grothe 4-8 2-7 11, Levi Toben 2-5 0-0 6, Zach Keaton 4-10 4-4 12, Aiden Vacha 2-5 0-0 5, Caden Ristau 1-8 1-2 3, Will Schleicher 0-1 0-0 0, Hudson Jennings 1-2 0-0 3, Brian Conner 0-0 0-0 0, Gavin Reeder 0-0 0-0 0, Jonathan Campos 1-1 0-0 3, Drew Fittje 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 18-52 10-17 55.
GRAND ISLAND (4-7)
Babur Choul 6-15 2-2 16, Victor Fisher Jr. 9-13 3-7 21, Ethan Coslor 6-9 1-2 17, Broxton Barrientos 0-5 0-0 0, Carter Bernal 2-7 1-1 6, Riley Holling 0-3 0-0 0, Cody Garrett 1-1 1-2 3, Brady Douglass 0-0 0-0 0, Nathan Kosmicki 0-0 0-0 0, Brock Cushing 0-0 0-0 0, Derek Harun 0-0 2-2 2, Nelson Mintken 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 24-53 10-16 65.
Fremont 17 7 12 19—55
Grand Island 14 17 19 15—65
3-point goals—Fremont 9-26 (Bryant 3-9, Grothe 1-1, TOben 2-5, Vacha 1-2, Ristan 0-5, Schleicher 0-1, Jennings 1-2, Campos 1-1), GI 7-26 (Choul 2-7, Fisher 0-2, Coslor 4-7, Barrientos 0-4, Bernal 1-5, Holling 0-1). Fouled out—Barrientos. Rebounds—Fremont 31 (Grothe 7, Schleicher 7), GI 37 (Fisher 12). Assists—Fremont 8 (Bryant 2, Grothe 2, Keaton 2), GI 17 (Choul 9). Turnovers—Fremont 13, GI 12. Total fouls—Fremont 13, GI 16. Technicals—None. A—NA.
GISH Hall of FameThe Grand Island Senior High Athletic Hall of Fame introduced its seventh class during halftime of Friday night’s boys basketball game between the Islanders and Fremont.
Johnna (Jeffries) Austin, who starred in golf and track and field and golf, and baseball standout Kash Kalkowski were inducted into the 2025 class as athletes. Also inducted were Bill Root (volleyball coach), the 2008 state championship baseball team and Larry Rutar (contributor).
A brunch honoring the new inductees will take place at 10 a.m. Saturday at Balz Banquet and Reception Hall (213 N. Sycamore St., Grand Island). Tickets cost $25 and can be purchased at the door.