Princeton loss still bothers Arizona center Oumar Ballo as trip home to Mali approaches

Oumar Ballo had the perfect excuse, and even he isn't buying it.

Nearly two months after Arizona lost a first-round NCAA Tournament game to Princeton, the flameout still burns at the Wildcats’ junior center — even though he had to play with a broken left hand suffered just six days earlier in the Pac-12 Tournament.

“It still hurts because, personally, I was not mentally ready to play that game. I was not,” Ballo said after a recent workout at McKale Center. “I feel like I could get more prepared to play that game than I was, I could be more game-ready, more locked in to play that game.

“Those are mistakes that we'll learn from. I'm not gonna let this happen to me ever again, or in anything that I'm a part of. The great lesson that I learned from that game is that we don't take any opponent for granted, especially in March Madness.”

The Wildcats became only the 11th second-seeded team in history to lose to a No. 15 seed. And — whether because of mental or physical limitations, or both — Ballo was slightly off from his normal self. He posted a double-double with 13 points and 12 rebounds against the Tigers but did so against an undersized opponent and while often going up for the ball with only his healthy right hand.

“It hurt,” Ballo said. “Every time you're in action, you trying to protect yourself; you’re trying not to do too much.

"It's a (long) tournament and you're trying to make it from your first game to the second game. I feel like there were some rebounds that I could catch, but I was a little bit scared. I was just not mentally prepared enough to play that game.”

'Incredible, remarkable'

That Ballo played at all in the Wildcats’ final two games last season is still something of an upset. Ballo broke his left hand in the second half of Arizona’s win over ASU in the Pac-12 Tournament semifinals and managed to log 26 minutes a day later in the Wildcats’ championship game win over UCLA.

“That was incredible,” UA athletic trainer Justin Kokoskie said.

Kokoskie said it helped that UA travels with team doctors in the postseason and that T-Mobile Arena had an X-ray machine on site, as does McKale Center (but not all Pac-12 venues).

“Within two minutes after the game, he's getting an X-ray,” Kokoskie said. “We already had a plan. I'm on the phone with a hand surgeon back in Tucson, and we're coming up with plans. (Doctors) were on it.”

Kokoskie said the X-ray results confirmed that Ballo’s hand was still aligned properly, meaning he would not risk further injury if he played with adequate protection.

“Ultimately, you can't take a six- to eight-week injury and turn it into a one-week injury,” Kokoskie said. “But we can help provide the best environment for that bone to heal in a safe way. And we weren't going to put his future at risk either. … If it's not aligned properly, we're gonna go get surgery on it and protect his long-term health."

So Kokoskie wrapped up Ballo with a makeshift hand cast to play against UCLA, and Ballo collected 13 points and eight rebounds in a game in which the Wildcats needed all of them, beating the Bruins 61-59. Ballo had four turnovers but still managed to hit 4 of 8 shots from the field and 5 of 9 from the line despite having basically only one full-time hand.

“He was actually pretty effective, and that's less than 24 hours after that injury," Kokoskie said. "That’s remarkable.”

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Making progress

Five days later, Ballo played 28 minutes against Princeton. Although he said he was pacing himself and the broken hand for a long NCAA Tournament run, well, there turned out to be no long NCAA Tournament run.

Instead, Ballo said he took two weeks off after the Wildcats’ shocking loss while rehabbing the hand, then eased himself back into workouts. Ballo said Kokoskie also hooked him up with an EXOGEN bone stimulator that helped heal the fracture faster.

So by the time he finished a workout late last month, Ballo said the hand was fine, though he was wearing bandages over two fingers because of yet another issue.

It's all part of the deal for Ballo. He also banged up his right hand significantly in midseason.

“He is someone who just gets his hand and his fingers whacked,” Kokoskie said. “It's almost like it's every day. It’s fingers. It’s wrist. It's forearms. Elbows. He gets whacked a lot. I think it's just being a big guy. He goes up pretty hard, and just by force, when someone else is coming down on him, you're gonna have some injuries.

“But I give him a lot of credit for finishing at the end of the year. He ultimately put the team before himself, and a lot of guys could have had that hand fracture and said, ‘You know what? This isn't it, wasn't meant to be,' and sit out. But he did the best he could.”

Heading home

Now, Ballo should get a chance for some extended rest — and the chance to see friends and family in his native Mali. Except he'll also get right on the court in a somewhat different fashion.

Ballo said he planned to leave for Mali on Thursday to help run an “Elite Skills Camp” in Bamako on May 13 and 14 with five other NCAA basketball players from Mali: Connecticut’s Adama Sanogo, Michigan State’s Mady Sissoko, Utah’s Keba Keita, BYU’s Fousseyni Traore and North Texas’ Moulaye Sissoko.

The camp is expected to host 240 boys and girls between ages 5 and 14, with skill-development sessions, tournaments and autograph sessions. Ballo said he and the other college players will help pick the top 24 players, who will have video of them sent to U.S. high school coaches in the hope of gaining opportunities.

“I can't wait. I'm excited,” Ballo said. “It's gonna mean a lot for those kids. All they see is us on social media, but they never get to see us in person so they’re gonna be really happy.”

Ballo has seen that effect since he was 14, when he turned into a star for Mali’s youth teams in several FIBA competitions, including the country's appearance in the championship game of the 2019 FIBA U19 World Cup.

After committing to Arizona in 2021 as a transfer from Gonzaga, Ballo said he had noticed the words “Ballo,” “Baby Ballo” and “Ballo Junior” on the backs of jerseys. He was also reminded of his impact during a trip home last summer.

“I went to a middle school, and we were there just watching the practice, and there were two kids named after me,” Ballo said. “I was like `Oh, wow, that is something special.’ I realized that there have been a lot of kids back home following me. I need to do the right thing when I get the opportunity to help them out.”