Indiana head coach Mike Woodson said after the Indiana-Illinois game that he would have to wait and see if the Big Ten would take some action against sixth-year center Oumar Ballo after his part in the scuffle between the Hoosiers and Fighting Illini.
Well, the Hoosiers had a short rest period between games this week as they took on Illinois on Tuesday and turned around to take on Ohio State on Friday. That is a short amount of time for the Big Ten to make a decision on what they would do when it comes to Ballo, who was the only player ejected after the fight.
It seems the conference made their decision, and it should make Indiana fans very happy.
News regarding Oumar Ballo ahead of tomorrow’s game against Ohio State. #iubb https://t.co/YJheBnrvU5
— Alec Lasley (@allasley) January 17, 2025
The conference is letting Ballo play tonight against Ohio State and will not take any further action against the sixth-year senior out of Mali.
In the final minutes of Indiana's embarrassing outing against Illinois, tensions rose when Luke Goode was called for a common foul on a box out of Tomislav Ivisic. Ivisic clearly did not like how Goode chose to box him out and got in the face of Goode. At that time, Goode's teammate Myles Rice chose to get involved and push Ivisic out of Goode's ear.
At this point, both teams came over to get involved and stand up for their respective teammate. Then, out of nowhere, Ballo came in, jumped, and shoved Ivisic to the ground. By the time Ivisic got up to relate, both coaches and all the refs had gotten involved and had pulled the teams apart.
At that point, the refs went over to the monitor to sort out the situation. Ballo ended up being asses a Flagrant 2 foul and was ejected from the game, while Rice, Ivisic, and Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn were all given technical fouls.
Luckily, Ballo did not have any more repercussions from his actions, and Woodson said after the game he would talk with Ballo about handling that situation in a different way.