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All season long, even in the six previous Arizona games when Caleb Love made just one 3-pointer or missed them all, the message was always the same.

Keep going. Keep shooting. Don’t give up.

That didn’t change Monday night at McKale Center during UA’s stunning 86-75 overtime win over Iowa State. It only became stronger.

Arizona guard Caleb Love (1) makes a drive towards the basket as Iowa State guard Keshon Gilbert (10) defends in the first half at McKale Center in Tucson on Jan. 27, 2025.

Before Love hit one of the most memorable shots in McKale history, a roughly 60-foot buzzer-beating bomb to send the game into overtime, leading to an upset of the nation’s third-ranked team, Love had made just 1 of 10 3-pointers.

But he felt the same message from UA coach Tommy Lloyd.

“He kept tapping me like, ‘next one going in, next one going in, keep shooting,’” Love said.

He felt it from fellow wing Anthony Dell’Orso, who inbounded him the ball for the game-tying shot, and from assistant coach Rem Bakamus. Also, basically, from anyone who was wearing an Arizona uniform during a tense game in which the Cyclones led for over 24 minutes, in part because Love couldn’t get going for 39 minutes and 58 seconds.

Caleb Love missed nine of his first 10 3-point shots during UA's 86-75 win over No. 3 Iowa State before throwing in a 60-foot buzzer beater to send the game into overtime in a 71-71 tie and then two more 3s to sew it up. Video courtesy of Arizona Athletics.

Love felt it anyway.

“Delly was telling me, ‘keep shooting,’” Love said. “Rem was telling me, ‘keep shooting.’ All my teammates, ‘Next one going in.’”

That included two particularly prescient players, guys who had routinely faced Love in practices for the past two years, watched him torch opponents during games, and knew how lethal his shooting touch can be when fully lit.

So walk-ons Grant Weitman and Luke Champion told Love to keep shooting, too. With about two minutes left in regulation, Love said, they described the future.

“Grant and Champ were telling me ‘You gonna make the biggest one of the night,’” Love said. “And that’s what I did.”

Arizona Wildcats guard Caleb Love (1) screams after dunking the ball in the first half during a game against Iowa State in Tucson on Jan. 27, 2025.

There were countless ways it wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

For one thing, Love isn’t even the best halfcourt shooter on the team, and he’ll admit that much. The Wildcats routinely practice halfcourt shots at the end of every pregame shootaround, and the guy who is even better at them than Love ran out of eligibility in 1998.

“For sure, he is,” Love said of Lloyd, a prolific shooter at Division III Whitman College. “He makes a lot more half-courters than I do.”

Saying he has the Wildcats shoot the halfcourt shots mostly for fun, Lloyd said Love is “decent at them,” but acknowledged there was something different about this one.

“I’m probably a little bit better than him at the half-courters,” Lloyd said. “But he let it go and it was online. That’s all you can do — online, don’t leave it short. When it went in, it was pretty amazing.”

Also, there were a lot of scenarios in which Love wouldn’t be taking the shot or, if ISU had capitalized on several opportunities late in regulation, that nobody would.

The Cyclones’ last chance to sew it up came after UA’s Jaden Bradley missed a potential game-tying 3-pointer with eight seconds left. Teammate Henri Veesaar pulled down the offensive rebound and was fouled but, after making the first free throw to bring UA within two, he intentionally missed the second free throw by tossing it hard at the glass, hoping it might bounce into a teammate’s hands for a bucket that could tie the game.

Instead, ISU’s Joshua Jefferson lunged to grab Veesaar’s miss, and Arizona was forced to foul him. Jefferson went to the line with 2.2 seconds left and the Cyclones leading by two.

A pair of made free throws meant the game was essentially over.

Jefferson missed the first one.

“I’ve always said, just from the days of sitting by myself watching basketball or watching it with my dad on TV that the hardest free throws to make are to (ones that could get you) up from two to four,” Lloyd said. “How often do you watch a game and then a guy makes both of them? It’s amazing how often they miss to keep the suspense going.”

Another wrinkle: That Jefferson made the second one, allowing Arizona to set up a play for the 2.2 seconds that remained, instead of having to scramble off a potential rebound.

Two seconds left implied that, even if the margin stayed at two, the Wildcats would not likely have time to take anything but a 3 anyway — although a 3 would beat the Cyclones, not tie them, if Jefferson missed both free throws.

“I almost wish he’d miss this,” ESPN analyst Fran Frascilla said as Jefferson launched his second.

After Jefferson’s second free throw went in, putting the margin again at three points, Dell’Orso scrambled up and down the baseline, looking to maximize whatever chance Arizona had left.

Lloyd said the Wildcats had looked at a play that “didn’t look great,” and Love said the first option was for Dell’Orso to launch the ball even farther downcourt to center Henri Veesaar, a respectable 3-point shooter who could have taken a shot or dished off quickly to someone who could.

“They kind of covered it,” Love said of the Cyclones’ defense. “So, I was directly in front of the ball. I got the ball and, you know, chucked it up.”

The Cyclones had one other choice. They could have tried to foul early before Arizona began taking a shot, sending a Wildcat to the line for only two free throws.

But if they did so, the resulting shooter would have a chance to make the first and intentionally miss the second, hoping a teammate would put it back in to tie the game – or if they fouled a split-second too late and a UA shot was in motion, the fouled player would get three free throws.

To Iowa State Coach T.J. Otzelberger, those possibilities were scarier than a potential buzzer-beating bomb.

“When it’s a couple seconds … I mean, it’s easy to look at it now and say, ‘Hey, why didn’t you foul in that situation?’” Otzelberger said. “ I don’t know what the odds are of that shot going in, but probably not real high. So I think the odds in that situation would say you’re far better off not to foul and defend.”

When Love did get the ball around the three-point line, he took two dribbles and elevated to launch his shot. He was roughly 12 feet before the halfcourt line, or about 60 feet from the basket, or about two-thirds the way to the rim.

No matter which way you measured, it was a long shot.

Even if the guy who took it was the one you kept telling to shoot all along.

“Anybody shooting from half court, I’m probably not feeling great, no matter who’s taking it,” Lloyd said. “I definitely didn’t think ‘Oh, he’s due. He’s gonna make this one.’”

The ball sailed directly into the hoop. No rim, no glass. Just a clink.

“Holy s—-,” Lloyd said, describing his immediate reaction.

Arizona Wildcats head coach Tommy Lloyd gives encouragement to his players in the second half during against Iowa State on Jan. 27, 2025. Arizona won in overtime 86-75.

The game was not over yet, still just tied at 71, but the ecstatic reaction inside McKale Center suggested that overtime was simply academic at that point.

Certainly, Love thought so.

“You hit a shot like that, you got to win in overtime,” Love said. “There’s no way we losing.”

So, after Iowa State tied the game at 75 midway through the five-minute overtime period, Love hit a 3-pointer 12 seconds later and, after freshman Carter Bryant stole the ball from ISU guard Curtis Jones, Love hit another in front of the UA bench.

Thirty seconds after that one, Bryant hit his own 3-pointer, his fourth in five long-range attempts, and UA held an 84-75 lead that pretty much signaled the end.

Afterward, while also noting that Bryant had his “real Arizona moment today,” Lloyd said he hoped the game would become part of the process for his ever-improving Wildcats, not just a one-time event.

He expressed hope that it would become part of Love’s process, too.

“You guys know I love that kid, and I’m here for him,” Lloyd said. “That’s my job. My job is not to run away from the players that I’ve helped choose to be part of this program. Sometimes, it’s as easy as ‘make a few more shots,’ but you’ve got to hang in there.

“So for him to make that shot and then come out in overtime and make the first two 3s, let’s hope that takes a ton of pressure off of him. That he can move forward and play great the rest of the year.”

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Contact sports reporter Bruce Pascoe at bpascoe@tucson.com. On X(Twitter): @brucepascoe