As the Southeastern Conference was having a perfect night, going three for three in the NCAA Tournament, there was one guy watching with an interest different than a fan.
New Arkansas State University Coach Mike Balado was pulling for one of his lifelong heroes, South Carolina Coach Frank Martin, in a game no one thought the Gamecocks had a chance to win.
Baylor was too long and athletic for the No. 7 seed South Carolina, right?
Wrong, and Balado, with his belief in Martin, might have been one of the few who believed it would not be an upset.
"I played AAU ball for him. He's a legend as a high school and summer coach in Miami," Balado said with a smile.
The real crux of Balado's admiration for Martin came in his next statement, when his tone grew quiet and a little emotional with pride.
"He's the first Cuban American to go through the system and be successful," Balado said.
The stories of the Balado and Martin families are intertwined with similarities.
Balado's grandparents escaped Fidel Castro's reign of terror in Cuba, while it was Martin's parents who did.
Like Martin, Balado speaks fluent Spanish.
"My mom would go to work as a travel agent and my dad to the warehouse of an import-export business, and I'd stay home with my grandparents," he said. "We all lived together, and the only language spoken was Spanish. I didn't learn to speak English until I started school."
Balado played college basketball at St. Thomas University in Miami, spent one season as a graduate assistant at Augusta State in Georgia and another as an assistant coach before spending six seasons as a high school coach.
In 2008, he landed an assistant job at Miami, moved to High Point in North Carolina and then back home to Florida International, where he became friends with his boss, Coach Richard Pitino.
At times he was also the mediator between Rick and his son, Richard, taking the calls from Louisville's head coach that the son was ignoring.
When Richard left for Minnesota he called Balado, who had been told to hold tight because there might be a job for him with the new FIU coach. That didn't work out, and by the time he called Richard back, the job at Minnesota had been filled.
"Suddenly, I was a guy with a wife and a family and I didn't have a job," Balado said.
Then Rick Pitino called, consoling him with a story about a time in the early 1980s when he was an assistant at Boston University, thought he had another job, didn't get it, but instead got hired by Hubie Brown as an assistant with the New York Knicks.
Balado drove to Louisville thinking, OK, that's a great story. It got a lot better when Balado arrived in Louisville and Pitino said he was his new assistant coach. That was 2013, and between then and now a respect grew for Pitino that rivals that of Martin.
Balado is the 37th former Pitino player or assistant to become a head coach, a list that is full of Hall of Famers.
What Balado didn't realize was that fate would soon smile on him again. During his time at Florida International, Balado met an up-and-coming, hard-charging assistant athletic director by the name of Terry Mohajir, who is now the athletic director at Arkansas State.
Mohajir, in fact, had his first choice, Balado, less than a week after Grant McCasland announced he was leaving the Red Wolves for North Texas.
"I want to make ASU a national ... no, an international brand," Balado said Thursday during a media tour. "There's a lot to sell in Jonesboro: academics, football and our athletic director."
Mike Balado has the training, teaching and background to make the Red Wolves an international name. He intends to recruit from Arkansas to Miami, to cover every region of the country if necessary, and as he said, being bilingual in the world of college basketball is definitely a plus.
Sports on 03/26/2017