Thanks to the Arizona Wildcats, there probably won’t be many surprises when the Pac-12 announces its postseason awards Tuesday.
UA’s Tommy Lloyd is expected to be named coach of the year. Bennedict Mathurin is the likely player of the year. Christian Koloko has a shot to become both Defensive Player of the Year and maybe even Most Improved Player of the Year.
Then, assuming Stanford’s Harrison Ingram picks up Freshman of the Year in an unrelated non-surprise, that means all the suspense could be around the Sixth Man of the Year … and Arizona has a few guys with an argument for that one.
Especially the way Oumar Ballo is playing lately.
While UCLA’s Jaylen Clark might be the leading candidate for the award based on a fast-developing two-way game that is firmly on the NBA radar, Ballo has become more and more dependable for the Wildcats off the bench since his 21-point coming out party at Stanford on Jan. 20, when forward Azuolas Tubelis was lost early in the game to an ankle sprain.
Ballo finished the regular season on a perfect note Saturday in No. 2-ranked UA’s 89-61 win over California, leading the Wildcats with 16 points while making all seven field goals he took and both free throws while also collecting five rebounds.
“Unbelievable,” Lloyd said, when asked Saturday how much Ballo has improved this season. “I mean, it’s crazy. Just the force he played with in that game today.”
Forceful and, especially on Saturday, efficient.
In conference play, Ballo is now something of a Kenpom all-star: He leads the conference in two-point shooting during conference games (68.2), is fourth in offensive rebounding percentage (picking up missed opponent shots 13.0% of the time he’s on the floor) and 17th in defensive rebounding percentage (16.6). He’s also fifth in block percentage (5.4) and fourth in the sometimes underrated stat known as “fouls drawn per 40 minutes” (5.5).
Wildcats center Oumar Ballo rejects a shot during Thursday’s win over Stanford. Ballo was at his best Saturday against Cal, hitting all seven of his shots while scoring 16 points and grabbing five rebounds.
All that from a guy who averaged only 6.3 minutes while playing in only 24 games for Gonzaga last season.
“I improved a lot,” Ballo said, when asked about that obvious fact. “My body and my conditioning and my flexibility, I can say I improved a lot in those areas.”
How? Necessity played a role, of course, first for spelling Tubelis that night in Palo Alto but since then by helping hold down things when starting center Christian Koloko runs into foul trouble — or allowing Lloyd to go with a twin-towers look with Koloko at times.
But Ballo traces his improvement back well before that. He said it also had to do with all those workouts he had with Koloko behind the scenes under assistant coach Riccardo Fois, who left his job as the Phoenix Suns’ director of player development to join the Wildcats this season.
“Coach Ricky really helped me,” Ballo said. “He will help everyone out but especially me. Me and Christian, we worked hard every day after practice, hours in gym, and I felt `It’s coming. It’s coming along’ and I’m glad I trust him. I trust the coaching staff.”
It also helped that the guy Ballo was practicing against became one of his best friends.
Ballo said he met Koloko last season when the Wildcats made their annual stopover in Spokane the night before playing at WSU. Ballo and UA guard Bennedict Mathurin were already good friends from their days as teammates and roommates at the NBA Academy of Latin America in Mexico City, and Mathurin happened to be with Koloko at the time.
“I went to see Benn and I met Christian,” Ballo said. “He’s a great guy and when I came here, he really welcomed me with open arms. I learned so much from him and we had just had that bond in practice and off the court. We just were good friends.”
Considering they are essentially battling directly for playing time — 7-footers who are mostly slotted for one spot under the basket, though Koloko has played briefly on the perimeter — that’s not something you see every day.
In fact, Lloyd says the relationship with Koloko is the “coolest” thing about Ballo’s development.
“They’re best friends and they beat on each other at practice. Every day,” Lloyd said. “They do extra workouts together, they probably lift weights together. They hang out together off the court and they just seem to have a way of picking each other up. If one is struggling, the other one kind of takes the reins and it’s a great 1-2 punch.”
Together, Ballo and Koloko helped Arizona win the Pac-12 title by more than three games, giving the Wildcats the No. 2 AP ranking and a projected No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed possibly no matter how they fare this week in the Pac-12 Tournament.
Even though Ballo reached the championship game with Gonzaga last season, he indicated it’s been a more satisfying ride this time, because he’s playing a big role in getting the Wildcats where they are.
And he’s playing that role for a guy he followed from Gonzaga, not knowing exactly what might happen next.
“This is definitely more special, winning a championship where I’m basically one of the main guys and also for coach Tommy,” Ballo said. “It’s his first year coming here and doing all of this in first year, this is something that you don’t see that often. I’m really glad and happy for him that he was able to do this for Tucson, for his family and for all of us.”
No. 2 Arizona held off Stanford 81-69 Thursday night at McKale Center. The Wildcats were led by Bennedict Mathurin's 24 points and Christian Koloko's double-double of 21 points and 10 rebounds.
