Mario Saint-Supery won’t be the only former Gonzaga player suiting up for Valencia Basket next season.
Oumar Ballo, who spent the 2020-21 season with the Zags, has signed a three-year deal with the reigning Spanish champions, Ballo’s agent Ivan Zoroski announced on social media Friday morning. The 7-foot center now joins Saint-Supery in Valencia after the point guard left Gonzaga in mid-July and signed a five-year deal back in his home country.
Saint-Supery’s move came after a strong freshman year in Spokane. He averaged 8.6 points and 3.8 assists in 23.1 minutes per game while shooting 40.8% from 3-point range.
Ballo was among the last international players Tommy Lloyd brought to Gonzaga, arriving for the Zags’ unforgettable 2020-21 run that stayed unbeaten until the national title game against Baylor. He played in 24 games that season and had a limited role behind Drew Timme, Anton Watson, Corey Kispert in a small-ball four role, and freshman Ben Gregg, averaging 2.5 points and 1.5 rebounds in 6.3 minutes per game.
After that season, Lloyd left for Arizona and Ballo followed, and his game took off in Tucson. He went on to earn Pac-12 First Team honors twice and was named Pac-12 Most Improved Player in 2022-23.
Ballo then used his fifth year of eligibility to reportedly land more than $1 million in NIL money to play at Indiana. In the Big Ten, he averaged 13 points, 9.1 rebounds and 1.3 blocks, and led the conference by shooting 62.3% from the field.
His first professional season included 33 total games. He played 29 with Pallacanestro Cantù in Italy, where he averaged 10.9 points and 8.2 rebounds while hitting 65.8% of his shots. He also appeared in four games in Rwanda for RSSB Tigers, putting up 12 points and 10 rebounds per game.
Valencia won the Liga Endesa behind star forward Jean Montero and elite point guard Sergio de Larrea. De Larrea later went No. 25 overall in the NBA draft to the Dallas Mavericks, a move that helped set in motion Saint-Supery’s departure from Spokane. Gonzaga responded Thursday by adding Dayton transfer point guard Javon Bennett to fill Saint-Supery’s spot.
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Gonzagas offseason roster picture still has some moving parts, with 12 of 15 spots currently spoken for and three players waiting on eligibility decisions. Nathan de Sousa, Izan Almansa and Skylar Wicks are all still in limbo, even as the Bulldogs have already added transfers Javon Bennett and Chauncey Wiggins and continue to look at more backcourt help.
The bigger issue may be the guard market itself, where Gonzaga has tracked several targets whose situations are anything but simple. The Bulldogs are still eyeing options such as Lee, Donovan Dent and Edwards, but each comes with uncertainty that could shape whether he is available for this season, and in some cases whether a path to campus is even clear yet. [Read more 🡒]