By Richard D. Smith | Posted March 27, 2025
Bohdan Biekietov was a standout on the outstanding 2024-25 Montgomery High School boys basketball team — not just because of his 6-foot 9-inch stature. He hails from a place that has produced numerous elite basketballers. Boston? Los Angeles? New York? No, Ukraine.
The life paths of Kyryl Streltsov (5), Bohdan Biekietov (33), and Ethan Lin (11) crossed in a life-changing way that transcends basketball. Photo by George Youreneff.
Eastern Europe took enthusiastically to American-invented basketball, producing legions of elite Olympians and, later, National Basketball Association professional stars. Ukraine has been in the center of the action. As Biekietov said during a recent interview: “When you know that someone from your country, even your city, has played in the NBA, you think, maybe it’s not that long of a journey. It motivates you to work hard and be like them.”
Sadly, Ukraine is the center of other action that is very much not a game — Russia’s 2022 invasion, and now war. Biekietov’s fortuitous relocation to Montgomery Township with his mother and sister soon after the war’s outbreak is central to his compelling story.
Kris Grundy, MHS athletic director and head basketball coach, told The Montgomery News that “Bohdan is an amazing young man who has made Montgomery High School and the Montgomery community a better place.
“To truly understand what his family has gone through, and is still going through, makes his journey even more remarkable.”
First off, Biekietov’s father is still in Ukraine defending his country from Russian missiles. This surely gives Biekietov a unique perspective — competing on a basketball court while his father and community members fight for their county.
Basketball has changed his life trajectory in an unexpected way. Biekietov ended up in a state championship game in March, making history for Montgomery High School. It was first time MHS had ever made it to the final state championship game, which makes it significant, even though they fell to Plainfield.
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Montgomery Cougars dominated the 2024-25 NJSIAA Boys Basketball Central Jersey, Group 4 tournament, emerging victorious. Then they fought through the overall State Group 4 tournament, losing only to a tough Plainfield team. “I think we battled all the way through,” Biekietov said. “It meant a lot to me that we reached the finals.” The championships gave Biekietov ample opportunity to display his impressive skills on the court, and his team-oriented attitude.
Bohdan Biekietov (33) in action at a home game against Princeton in December. Montgomery won 68-35. Photo by George Youreneff.
At one moment during Montgomery’s March 5th victory in a game against North Brunswick, a teammate lobbed the ball just above the basket. With one smooth jump, Biekietov intercepted it and stuffed it home for two points before returning to the ground.
“He made a good lob, I only had to put it in,” Biekietov said modestly. “He basically made the basket himself.”
Biekietov’s skills and academic abilities landed the MHS senior a scholarship to the highly competitive Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA.
Biekietov’s hometown is Odessa, the famed Ukrainian port city on the northwest shore of the Black Sea. At age 10, while in midschool (equivalent to American fifth grade), a coach noticed Biekietov as the tallest boy in his class. Both his parents stand well over six feet. But more crucially, the coach gauged Biekietov’s athletic potential, and encouraged him to seriously consider basketball as a sport.
Ukraine’s public school system had knowledgeable instructors plus scheduling flexibility allowing youngsters to learn a sport while maintaining high academic standards. Still, Biekietov’s height advantage was no guarantee of success. “I didn’t have natural skills,” he said. “I had to develop them.”
The Ukrainian school had created special scheduling for sports, in which student-athletes gathered for the day’s first practice at 7 am, then arriving a bit late for classes but making it up by staying a bit later. Athletes then had a second and final workout after school. “That was my life for about two years,” he said. Biekietov played against various other boys’ teams during the school year.
Over summers, he played in pickup games at local public parks, “one of my favorite basketball memories of those years.” The sport became integral to his life — and even his outlook. “When I started playing basketball, my life became about doing my best,” he said.
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Exploration of new possibilities has been part of Biekietov’s family heritage. When he was a boy, his parents were farmers. Not the traditional soil-tilling variety but entrepreneurs of hydroponics.
“With hydroponics you don’t need a lot of farm land. You can basically put all the lamps and tanks and equipment in your basement,” Biekietov said. His parents rented a large, warehouse-like basement space to grow and sell lettuce and basil, plus basil products like pesto and humus. Of course, the entire family farmed in this way.
“I had a lot of that in my childhood,” he laughed. “Cleaning, usually. The watering was automatic!”
Meanwhile, his parents maintained regular professional careers. His father, Dmitriy, was a ship broker, arranging contracts between the owners of freighters and companies needing to ship products (often Ukraine’s abundant wheat and other grains) to world markets). His mother, Olga, worked in a bank, later lending her financial skills to managing the farm plus another successful entrepreneurial venture: two stores selling pet foods and accessories.
In 2022, Biekietov attended a basketball academy in Spain. There he met fellow trainee Ethan Lin — from far-off Montgomery Township, New Jersey, in the United States — and Ethan’s family. There was a brutal simplicity to what happened next.
On February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine. Suddenly, it was too dangerous for Biekietov to return home: “I didn’t have a place to go to, basically.”
Ethan Lin (11), speeds down the basketball court in the Group IV state championship final in March. The Lin family brought two talented basketball players from Ukraine to Montgomery Township. Photo by Barbara A. Preston.
The Lin family stepped up. “They proposed that I should move to American with them,” Biekietov recalls today with a tone of wonder — quiet but profoundly grateful — in his voice. “Then we decided I should do it with my mom and sister [Sophia] because there were also better opportunities for them in Montgomery.” The crisis made it necessary for their father to stay behind, to be part of Ukraine’s defense. He now serves as a missile unit commander to protect Odessa from Russian drones and other attacks.
The Biekietovs started with a house rental and part-time jobs. (Bohdan found work at a Smoothie King.) They have now established stability and independence. His sister Sophia is a Montgomery High School student, successfully involved in musical theater. They’ve remained close to the Lin family, especially because Ethan has been Bohdan’s valued teammate on the Montgomery boys basketball squad. “He’s our main man,” Biekietov says, again with modesty but also accuracy.
Ethan put up leading scoring and performance stats for the 2024-25 season, which is especially impressive because Ethan was returning to form after a severe ankle break that kept him sidelined in 2023-24. Biekietov emphasizes that “the whole team deserves credit” for successes. Even members with less playing time who make fewer baskets or assists are vital contributors to the team’s intensive practices and overall level of preparedness.
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Biekietov’s father did get a get break from his Ukrainian army duties to visit America. He joined his family last year for a memorable trek to Boston for a National Basketball Association championship semi-finals game, the Boston Celtics vs. the Indiana Pacers. Biekietov said he was awestruck at seeing elite athletes in person displaying astounding footwork, ball control and quick decision making. And he was gob smacked by being in an immense, capacity-filled American pro sports arena. “The Boston fan base filled the streets with green and chants all over the place!”
While he may dream of playing in the NBA, he’s focused on graduating from MHS and going to college. He was recruited by several basketball powerhouses.
“Coach Grundy was number one in that area,” Biekietov said. The coach advised him on approaching colleges and on evaluating overtures, wrote recommendations, and served as a backboard as he prepared to score a final decision.
Grundy was grateful to help. Biekietov “has allowed me to keep things in perspective and understand there are events and circumstances that transcend high school basketball,” Grundy said. He emphasized the family component of Montgomery basketball. “We’re grateful that Bohdan came into our lives because he has taught us all so much.”
Coach Kris Grundy with Kyryl Streltsov (5) of Ukraine.
Another talented young Ukrainian has found a home in Montgomery. Kyryl Streltsov (5) was attending the same Spanish basketball academy where Bohdan Biekietov had studied. But by summer 2024 his time there was ending.
Benny Lin, Ethan’s father who had been so helpful in bringing Biekietov to America, knew Streltsovl and offered to bring him over as well if the Biekietov family could sponsor and take him in. The family readily agreed, and Streltsovl arrived in late August— with time enough to register as a Montgomery High School senior and make a great contribution to the Cougars 2024-25 boys basketball team.
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