After basketball nightmare in Africa, Oumar Ballo aims for big season at Arizona

In the hours before the biggest international game of his basketball career last summer, Oumar Ballo knew it couldn’t happen.

Nobody else did — just Ballo and the rest of the Mali senior national team. Before they opened up a FIBA World Cup African qualifying game against Uganda in Rwanda on July 1, Ballo and his teammates were growing tired of non-payments for expenses from their basketball federation, including Ballo’s pricey airline ticket from Arizona to Mali.

“They were promising guys to pay their own plane tickets, (that) if you go back home, they will pay you back — and then you get there and they don’t pay you back,” Ballo said Tuesday during the Wildcats’ annual preseason media day.

“Things were just going down for the federation. They were lying to players and we were not getting the respect that we deserve. So much bad stuff was going on at the same time. It was just too much.

“The crazy part about it is the government funded the federation, but the money just got lost.”

The Mali players had seen enough. Some of them refused to leave their Rwanda hotel and go to the gym for the Uganda game. Others boarded the bus but refused to put on uniforms.

The game was canceled. Mali players did the same thing a day later, and they were eliminated from the tournament (and scrubbed entirely off the FIBA World Cup qualifier website).

The decision meant Ballo — a hero in FIBA youth tournaments as a teenager — gave up the chance to play for his senior national team for the first time. “I was excited about it,” he said.

But there was little choice, the way Ballo described it.

“It was a little bit crazy situation,” Ballo said. “The condition was not good. Guys did everything for the team, but at the end of the day, they didn’t get the respect that they deserve and this wasn’t going to change.

“This was great because it was something to (help) change for the future generation. And if you want to change you need to make some sacrifices.”

Ballo made the best of it, anyway. He played in high-level exhibitions before the qualifiers alongside his older brother, who is a professional player in France.

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Then Ballo returned to Tucson and continued working on his game, and conditioning, aiming for an even bigger role this season.

Especially because NBA Draft pick Christian Koloko is no longer around, Ballo is expected to play significantly more than the 15.3 minutes he averaged last season. But running in Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd’s uptempo system is hard for anybody, not to mention someone with a 7-foot, 260-pound frame.

“It’s not easy for a big man,” Ballo said. “Most of the time we’re gonna be inbounding the ball, which is even harder because we have to (run) to catch the point guard to get the ball reverses in order for the offense to work. I’m just gonna have to make that better. I can’t complain about it. I’m definitely looking forward for it.”

Ballo said he not only needs to take Koloko’s spot as a rim protector, but also play a key offensive role, adding the sort of low-post game that helps Lloyd’s offense run at its best.

Lloyd expressed confidence that Ballo would make it happen. Lloyd said Ballo needs mostly just to make some small technique improvements such as making the simple close-in shots instead of falling away from the basket.

“I think he’s going to be a big impact at both ends of the floor,” Lloyd said. “The biggest area in his growth is just his belief in himself and in his work ethic.

“So I hope he has a good year. He deserves to have a good year. Now he’s got to go out and make it happen.”

Rim shots

Freshman guard Kylan Boswell is still not cleared for full practices after undergoing offseason foot surgery, Lloyd said, but he has been doing limited workouts with the Wildcats. Boswell also showed up for media day in uniform, saying he no longer has to wear a protective boot. “I’ve gotten back into doing some live-action stuff,” Boswell said. “Not completely cleared to go all-out, but doing some stuff.” Boswell may be cleared fully in time for UA’s Nov. 7 regular-season opener, though Lloyd says he isn’t expecting him to make a major impact until later in the season.

Arizona’s Nov. 1 exhibition game against Western Oregon has been moved from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., and will still be carried on Pac-12 Networks.

Four-star 2024 point guard Dedan Thomas Jr. of the Las Vegas area included Arizona in his top six, also listing Gonzaga, Houston, Florida, UCLA and UNLV.