For subscribers: Oumar Ballo played 89 minutes in last week’s exhausting three-game-in-three-days tournament in Maui. He got better as others around him began to tire.
Greg Hansen Since leaving his west African home of Mali at 13, Oumar Balli played and studied two years at a basketball academy in the Canary Islands, two years at the NBA Latin American Academy in Mexico City, followed by two bench-riding years at Gonzaga,"Honestly, at Gonzaga there were so many times I thought I’d go back home," Ballo said Tuesday at McKale Center."The pace was so fast and physical. I had never been part of anything like it.
"I was trying to push him away, not letting him do his job. I was too hard-headed," Ballo remembers."But he wouldn’t let up, he kept coming. He told me I wouldn’t be able to play Tommy’s system unless I changed my body. Finally, I figured out he was trying to make me a better, more explosive athlete. He wanted to get me where I wanted to be, so at some point I started liking what he was doing. I started seeing results. Today, my workout routine is pretty intense.
Best decision? Last week in Hawaii Ballo scored 63 points in three days, grabbed 32 rebounds and shot 77% in a three-day endurance test against elite competition.Ballo played 89 minutes in last week’s exhausting three-game-in-three-days tournament in Maui. He got better as others around him began to tire. In the championship game against No. 10 Creighton, Ballo made 14 of 17 shots and grabbed 13 rebounds. It rivals any performance by an Arizona big man over the last 50 years.
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