Adding Caleb Love moves Wildcats up in early rankings for 2023-24

Love him or not, Arizona’s latest addition has lifted the Wildcats back into the national men’s college basketball conversation.

Several early Top-25 projections for next season, updated last week when the NCAA’s withdrawal deadline for NBA Draft entrants passed and transfer portal calmed down, had Arizona in the Top 15 after the Wildcats added North Carolina transfer guard Caleb Love to a roster that is now full of depth and experience.

ESPN moved Arizona up from No. 23 to No. 11 while the Athletic’s Seth Davis elevated UA from 22 to 15. CBS’ Gary Parrish now has the Wildcats at No. 16, while SI has them at No. 15 and 247 ranks Arizona at 17.

“The Wildcats saved their biggest splash for last,” wrote ESPN’s Jeff Borzello, “landing North Carolina transfer Caleb Love, one of the best guards in the portal.”

Love finished off the Wildcats’ six-player recruiting spree this spring, giving them a proven scorer in the backcourt with a wildly varying efficiency. The 6-foot-4 guard from St. Louis starred in the Tar Heels’ run to the 2022 Final Four but last season became a symbol of their struggles, taking a third of UNC’s 3-point shots (7.4 per game) and hitting them at only a 29.9% rate.

“Caleb Love to Arizona: How’s that going to work?” blared a headline on SB Nation’s Duke Basketball Report. In the accompanying column, JD King wrote that Love was “very talented” but lacked discretion.

“ACC fans who got used to watching Love jack up insanely stupid shots from all over the court might wonder: Why would (UA coach) Tommy Lloyd want to take him on?,” King wrote.

Yet, Love is a former five-star recruit and McDonald’s high school All-American whom On3 rated the No. 3 player in the transfer portal this spring. Additionally, Rivals had him at No. 9, and even CBS rated Love the 17th-best transfer despite expressing doubts of its own.

“Overall, he’s a talented but glaringly inefficient offensive player who will have a chance to put up big numbers in Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd’s high-octane offensive system,” CBS’ David Cobb wrote, noting Love’s overall 36.0% career shooting from the floor.

CBS also put departing UA transfer Kerr Kriisa 10 spots higher than Love on its transfer portal rankings, while Rivals had Kriisa at No. 4 and Love at No. 9.

Overall, Arizona ranked 14th nationally and second in the Pac-12 in On3’s team transfer portal rankings, which measure a team’s overall improvement or lack thereof from portal activity.

That suggests Kriisa’s loss and that of backup wing Adama Bal (Santa Clara) were more than offset by the additions of Love, sophomore guard Jaden Bradley (Alabama) and senior forward Keshad Johnson (San Diego State).

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In the player transfer rankings, Bradley was listed at No. 39 by CBS, No. 54 by Rivals and No. 60 by On3. Johnson wasn’t among the 50 transfers CBS ranked, while On3 had him at No. 123.

Then there’s the quieter fact this spring that, while Arizona lost leading scorer Azuolas Tubelis to the NBA Draft pool, the Wildcats gained back guard Pelle Larsson from the draft and pulled in three more freshmen that are unranked because they are European.

Arizona last fall signed four-star Texas guard KJ Lewis and this spring added Spanish guard Conrad Martinez, Lithuanian forward Paulius Murauskas and Lithuanian 7-footer Motiejus Krivas (Murauskas’ expected addition is not official, however.)

Lewis is expected to be a key backcourt reserve while Murauskas could add some much-needed perimeter shooting after hitting 41.0% from 3-point range in Lithuania’s senior league last season.

But no newcomer appears more potentially impactful than Love, who led the Tar Heels in scoring last season and could do the same for the Wildcats next season.

Maybe even in a more efficient fashion, if Love refines his game within the structure of Lloyd’s pass-happy, uptempo offense.

Sam Vecenie, an NBA Draft analyst for the Athletic, wrote before Love picked UA that the guard made a good decision to transfer, giving him the ability to find a system that might bring more out of him.

“Love needs to be willing to take a step back, watch some tape and become a more comfortable and confident passer to his teammates,” Vecenie wrote in March. “Love has a real talent for breaking down defenders and separating from them. Instead of only looking to score out of those situations, he needs to also look to make the right play.

“All of this is to say that Love has a lot of talent but is a maddening basketball player to watch right now. Genuinely, I think there are real NBA skills in his game. Hopefully, a transfer and a new coaching staff in his ear unlock something for him that clearly wasn’t working anymore at North Carolina.”