Those unsolicited emails we all get? Alejo Barovero is proof that they are sometimes worth opening, and occasionally even deliver on the gifts they offer.
Barton College men’s basketball coach Ron Lievense received an email from the Argentine some time in the early 2000s, and in it he found himself a future Hall of Fame player.
“Alejo, or his mom, sent out an email to various schools saying that his brother had played at Anderson (University), and that Alejo was looking to come to the United States. I just followed up on the email,” Lievense recalls. “I had never heard of him, never seen him.
“We took him off of (watching) video. We rarely do that, because he was going to cost us a lot of (scholarship) money, and we don’t usually take a kid we haven’t seen personally. But I saw enough on the video that I really liked what I saw.
“I thought he could develop into a really good player. I also liked the fact that he was fluent in English and his mother was a U.S. citizen. His dad was from Argentina, so he’s a dual citizen. There were a lot of things going for him. Thank God he chose to come to Barton.”
Barovero joined the Bulldogs in the fall of 2003. He played sparingly in the 2003-04 season, and became a contributing role player in the 2004-05 season.
It was his junior year, 2005-06, when he emerged as a star player, averaging 16.1 points and 5.6 rebounds for a Barton team that went 28-4, won conference and regional titles, and reached the NCAA Division II Elite Eight for the first time in school history.
“Alejo really developed from his freshman year,” Lievense said. “A lot of that had to do with the fact that we as coaches just had to learn how to use his great talent. We moved him from the three spot to the four spot, and once we did that, the rest is history. He just really blossomed and grew as a player.”
He added 15.6 points per contest over 18 games during Barton’s 2006-07 national championship season, a campaign that for Barovero was interrupted by a broken hand five games into the year.
Because of the injury, Barovero considered redshirting and returning for a full senior season the following year, but ultimately decided against it.
“It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve made,” Barovero told the Wilson Times in a recent interview. “Two things happened. First, I had played with these guys for years, and I felt that THAT was my team, and I had to play with them and finish my college career with them. Second, I felt like my time at Barton had come to an end. I felt like I needed to return to my home country and start with my life in a different scenario, with a different objective. Therefore, the cycle had to end that year, not the next.”
Still, he was concerned how his return might impact a team that was winning without him.
“Coach Lievense was very supportive of my situation and my decision once I got hurt and decided to redshirt, as well as when I decided to come back for the end of the season. The team had a good streak going while I was hurt, and I was afraid coming back could change that dynamic. But he was very supportive of me, gave me confidence, even let me play some quality minutes on my first game back, which was one of the hardest games of the year, against Queens at their place. I had a good game and felt right back at home. That made it easy to adapt to the new scenario and help the team.”
Barovero returned as a role player for that championship run, and his acceptance of that job was important in Barton ultimately winning the national title. Not everyone would have done so, especially not someone who had started the year as a preseason All-American like him.
“I think the reason we were such a successful team was the unselfishness and how smart the players were,” he said. “Ego is a great cancer for a team. Obviously, not everybody can play as much as they want, shoot as much as they want, etc. All of us knew this, and we embraced our role, whether it was playing defense, rebounding, being a positive force from the bench, or just having a positive attitude every day in practice.
“Since losing the year before (in the Elite Eight), everybody had the same objective in mind, and personal stats couldn’t get in the way of our success. I think that made the difference. We were just a great TEAM.”
Lievense characterized Barovero as “the perfect student-athlete.”
“He was a biology major – the only one I’ve ever had finish here – with I think a 3.9 grade-point average. He was brilliant. He had a tremendous mind for the game of basketball. He was an extremely versatile player who could shoot the three, score around the basket, or put the ball on the floor and go to the basket.
“But his greatest strength was his intellectual ability. He saw what would happen in the game before it happened. Very few players have that kind of understanding for the game of basketball like he did. Actually, Alejo and Anthony (Atkinson, teammate and fellow Hall of Fame inductee) both had it, and that’s probably why we were so good.”
Barovero has played professionally in Argentina for much of the past decade, and is just beginning a new season with Union from Mar del Plata. Even at age 32, he remains a starter.
He did take a two-year break from basketball to earn his law degree, “so I work mornings in the court of law, and nights on the basketball court.”
Lievense is hardly surprised.
“Alejo was a brilliant basketball player. He was never rattled by pressure, never. Nothing ever got him out of his comfort zone. He was always calm and collected. He’s one of the best players we’ve ever had here. He was that good.”
