In the days leading up to the 2022 NCAA Tournament, something looked wrong with Caleb Love.
Then a sophomore standout at North Carolina, Love was coming off a three-game stretch in which he shot 20.4% from the field and averaged 14 resultingly inefficient points, struggling at Duke on the final day of the regular season and against Virginia and Virginia Tech in the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament.
Two weeks later, he dropped 30 points on UCLA in the Sweet 16. And a week after that, he helped send Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski into retirement by scoring 28 points on 11-for-20 shooting in UNC’s win over its archival in the Final Four semifinals.
So, should he be worried now? Should the Arizona Wildcats and their fans be worried?
In the days leading up to the 2024 NCAA Tournament, Love is in a similar place. Between UA’s season-finale loss at USC on March 9 and two games in the Pac-12 Tournament last weekend, Love averaged just 7.3 points while shooting 22% from 3-point range (4 for 18). He also had 11 turnovers to seven assists in those three games.
Caleb Love gestures to the Zona Zoo student section after throwing down an overhand dunk against Arizona State on Feb. 17. “Obviously, I think that this team kind of feeds off my energy and going into these games, I'm definitely going to be a confidence builder," he said.
On Monday, Love walked into the McKale Center interview room while juggling a ball and generally expressing the same sort of mentality he has all season.
At one point, he was asked how his confidence level is.
“Extremely high,” Love said. “Obviously, I think that this team kind of feeds off my energy and going into these games, I’m definitely going to be a confidence builder. … just constantly giving (teammates) encouragement and building them up as much as I can.
“I think sometimes we forget that we all need help sometimes. We all might go to a slump or we might be going through something maybe that’s on the court or off the court, so I’ll be constantly giving my teammates confidence, building them up, making them smile throughout this time.”
UA coach Tommy Lloyd has been giving Love his support all season long. In typical form during his Selection Sunday interview, Lloyd said he wasn’t going to “overthink” Love’s slump, saying he’s a great player who just hit a rough stretch.
The guy sitting next to Love at Monday’s media interview, forward Keshad Johnson, also gave off no sense of worry. Johnson said the Wildcats have all sorts of weapons, from point guard Kylan Boswell through center Oumar Ballo, and that Love has a track record that shows he can lead them.
“Everybody knows who Caleb Love is. Everybody’s seen him do it. And we trust him,” Johnson said. “We’ve got the utmost respect for him and everything. … We all know what he did in his college career. (He’s) one of our go to guys and we got a lot of heavy load behind him.”
The difference with Love’s slump this time is that it appeared to be part of the reason why UA lost to USC on March 9 and to Oregon in the Pac-12 Tournament semifinals.
Love had scored at least 23 points in UA’s previous six losses this season while the Wildcats had other problems develop. But he had two points on 1-for-10 shooting at USC. Then, after scoring 11 on 4-for-13 shooting against USC in the Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinals, had six points on 2-for-11 shooting against the Ducks.
Arizona guard Caleb Love drives against Southern California guard Bronny James during the first half of the Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinal last week.
Part of the problem was that the Trojans and Ducks were both throwing plenty of defensive tricks at him in their zone defenses.
“They tried to take me out of rhythm … probably tried to make me take tougher shots,” Love said, but then blamed himself also. “I gotta move more without the ball. I gotta get an offensive rebound, I gotta get out and transition to get myself on something like that. I gotta find a catch-and-shoot.
“It’s just playing off my teammates, playing still within the system, but still contributing in other ways as far as playing defense, rebounding, being active.”
While Love said he studied video of the losses, he said he more often pores over older video of good stuff, something UA player development director Rem Bakamus has made sure of.
“I’ve been doing that with Rem a lot,” Love said. “He’s just been showing me a lot of clips of what was working and what had me going on. So I think it’s kind of good that I went through that. I hit the reset button and I’m ready to go.”
Rim shots
In a post-selection interview, the chair of this season’s NCAA Tournament committee, Charles McClelland, indicated Arizona and Tennessee were also considered for the final No. 1 seed given to North Carolina. McClelland said the committee considered UA’s wins over Duke, Michigan State, Wisconsin and Alabama but that the Wildcats “fell on that No. 2 seed” line when their entire body of work was considered.
Arizona wound up the No. 6 overall team on the NCAA’s official seed list. The Wildcats’ first-round opponent, Long Beach State (21-14) was the 59th overall seed. Of the other two teams in UA’s Salt Lake City pod, Dayton (24-7) is 28th and Nevada (26-7) was 37th.
Arizona dropped from No. 5 to No. 9 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, which will be conducted for the first time this year after the NCAA Tournament ends. Lloyd will receive a $30,000 bonus if the Wildcats finish in the top 10 of the AP media or USA Today coaches poll or a $20,000 bonus if they wind up ranked between 11th and 15th.
