PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas – Gonzaga’s coaching staff and development team spent two years working with Oumar Ballo on his conditioning, helping him fine-tune his hook shot and spending countless hours behind the scenes with the Mali native as he adjusted to the American game.

Much to Gonzaga’s delight, and at certain points of Thursday’s game at Battle 4 Atlantis to his dismay, Ballo’s has made significant progress since arriving on Gonzaga’s campus in the fall of 2019.

The sixth-year center, who is spending his final season of eligibility at Indiana, was not only the focal point of the Hoosiers’ offense but also the sole player-coach Mike Woodson relied on for much of Gonzaga’s 89-73 victory at Imperial could Arena.

Ballo scored a game-high 25 points — the highest total of his career since a 30-point effort against Creighton and Gonzaga point guard Ryan Nembhard at the 2022 Maui Invitational — but his Indiana teammates didn’t offer much help as the Bulldogs built one in the first half Lead of 18 points.

“It was good, Gonzaga is a good program,” Ballo said. “There’s a reason they’ve been good for so long. That goes for Indiana too, and I’m glad we got to play. I wish we had had a different result, but it’s a long season and we’ll learn from it and get better at the next opportunity we get.”

With both of his former schools participating this week, there was a good chance the Indiana center would face either Gonzaga or Arizona at some point during the three-day stretch in the Bahamas.

It seemed likely that the only teams on Gonzaga’s side would face each other in a semifinal game at Atlantis on Thanksgiving Day, but surprising losses by both resulted in the Bulldogs and Hoosiers having a consolation game instead.

Mark Few’s coaching staff spent Wednesday night checking in on Indiana, which meant plenty of surprises for Ballo, who has spent the last four years improving his game and turning himself into an All-Pac-12 player at Arizona transform.

“It was difficult. “Obviously he’s doing a lot better,” Few said. “I think we had him, it was like six years ago. He is older and in great shape. I’m happy for him. But yeah, that right-handed hook fell tonight. But we were okay with that. We just didn’t want to give him too many problems between us and the basket and adjusted our ball coverage for the most part about halfway through the first half.

“Overall, after that change, we didn’t give him much between us and the basket.”

Ballo was still a handful, especially in the first half when he scored 19 of his 25 points and made eight consecutive shots to open the game. Ballo singlehandedly outscored Gonzaga 7-5 in two minutes midway through the first half, relying on a variety of hooks, layups and dunks.

Ballo was the only Indiana player to score a field goal during an 11-minute, 45-second stretch in the first half. At halftime, Ballo was 8 of 9 from the field, while nine other players combined to make just 4 of 22.

“It was interesting, but of course we saw him in Arizona for a long time and knew how good his development was. I thought the guys did a good job,” Gonzaga assistant Brian Michaelson said. “To his credit, he mastered a lot of those hooks, which obviously gave him the intuition and he became such a good roller. The size was always there, but his ability to catch and finish those roles was really good. I thought we did a good job of keeping him off the glass.”

Gonzaga threw a handful of big balls to Ballo, starting with Graham Ike, moving on to Braden Huff when Ike picked up two early fouls, then going after Ben Gregg after Huff got his second with 12 minutes, 20 seconds left in the half fouls were whistled.

Gregg, the only player on Gonzaga’s roster to overlap with Ballo during the 2020-21 season, played a handful of minutes at the “5” in a small-ball lineup and held his own against his former teammate, who was limited to two points was in the last eight minutes of the first half.

“That’s the beauty of Ben Gregg and also that he’s a veteran of your program,” Michaelson said. “We didn’t even really have to tell him anything. Go in there and fight, and Ben is smart enough that he knows a handful of plays and has it figured out. Not only did we not play Ben at fives (in a game), we also didn’t practice it. But if you can just get Ben to make plays, that’s really helpful. And Ben is a tough guy and Ben stood up to him, but again Oumar is a different guy than he used to be.”

Ballo’s scoring output fluctuated over the five games, but the veteran post was efficient for Indiana, making nearly 69% of his shots while averaging 9.0 rebounds per game.

“He’s gotten better since we got him,” Woodson said. “I have no complaints about the big guy, he’s done everything asked of him and we just need to get the supporting cast up to speed.”