PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas – It’s old home week for former Gonzaga big man Oumar Ballo at the Battle 4 Atlantis.

Ballo played one season at Gonzaga, developed into an All-Pac-12 player in three years at Arizona with former Zags assistant Tommy Lloyd and he has four games in his final college season at Indiana.

As it happens, No. 14 Indiana plays Louisville on Wednesday, with a date against No. 3 Gonzaga or West Virginia on Thursday. Arizona is a potential matchup between Gonzaga and Indiana on Friday.

“This business is a small world,” Ballo said Tuesday, “but I’m really glad I got to see the people of Gonzaga, the people of Arizona (Monday) and those are my people.”

In just more than six minutes, Ballo covered many topics, including his reasons for transferring from Gonzaga to Arizona and then from Arizona to Indiana, NIL, and leaving in his car in Tucson.

The NCAA required Ballo to sit out his first season at GU as an academic redshirt. The Mali native played an average of 6.2 minutes in 24 appearances the following year, but lost playing time to Ben Gregg later in the season. Ballo was recruited to Gonzaga by Lloyd, which was a reason for the 7-footer’s decision to follow Lloyd when he was hired as Arizona’s head coach after the 2021 season.

“Coming out of Gonzaga, Gonzaga is a great program, really good people too,” Ballo said. “But I feel like Tommy made Gonzaga a really good place for me. And when he went to Arizona, I followed him. The best decision of my life, it led me to where I am now.”

Ballo was a two-time first-team All-Pac-12 and averaged 14.2 points and 8.6 rebounds as a junior and 12.9 points and 10.1 boards last season.

When he transferred to Indiana, he was one of the biggest players in the transfer portal. The move garnered more attention when college basketball analyst Jeff Goodman on In another post, Goodman said he didn’t believe Ballo received that from Indiana.

Ballo denounced foul play on the $1.2 million figure and what happened two days later when someone broke into his car and took his wallet, cash, three credit cards, a laptop and other items.

“That’s the thing, people think it’s all about NIL,” Ballo said. “I know Jeff Goodman sent out a tweet saying something crazy. Literally two days later my car was broken into. People in my neighborhood thought I had a million dollars in my house and broke into my car.

“It’s not about the money. You have to find the right place for you. If you look at Indiana’s last two years, you’ll see that they added a center (Trayce Jackson-Davis and Kel’el Ware) to the league (NBA). They get along well with their adults. I felt like that would be a great place for me where they would play from the inside out. This is just a year, I have to think about my career, so it’s not about, “Oh, I’m going to get money,” but about what happens in the next five, ten years. People twist it, but guess what? It’s outside noise, I don’t really care.”

It was important enough for Ballo to discuss the post with Goodman.

“That’s not how it works, but I think he has to do what he has to do,” Ballo said. “But I feel like you have to see the player’s perspective. Something like that happens to us. If it were true, I’d be like, “Oh, okay.” But when something like that happens, every time you have a bad game, the fans are going to come at you and say, “You’ve got this money, you’ve got this money “I don’t think it’s fair to kids and I didn’t appreciate the way he did it, but it is what it is.”

Ballo appreciated Lloyd’s support during his decision to transfer. Lloyd said the two will always have a special relationship and that one of the reasons for Ballo’s departure has to do with the development of Motiejus Krivas, a 7-2 sophomore for the Wildcats.

At one point, Ballo told Lloyd, “It’s not fair that a guy like me gets six years of college (with a redshirt year and an additional COVID season) and a guy like Mo gets four.”

“Let’s talk reality here,” Lloyd said. “If Oumar came back, Mo Krivas might not be in Arizona right now, and Oumar didn’t want to put (Krivas) in a position where he had to move. When a guy does that for a younger man, it tells you what kind of man you’re dealing with. He’s a… stallion.”