After his leading scorer poured in 20 points during the first half Saturday at Oregon, Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd opened the microwave door so he could have a chat with Caleb Love.
He didn’t want Love to overheat.
“I told Caleb coming out of halftime `If you score 20 (for the entire game) and we win, that’s the objective here, so just manage the game and make good decisions.” Lloyd said, adding that he told Love: “You don’t need to play for a record. You don’t need to play for any of that stuff. Just play the right way,’ and that’s what he’s really been doing.”
Love
Actually, Love wound up doing both things.
Love not only continued putting together a careful 12-for-18 shooting effort to help Arizona beat the Ducks 87-78 and snap a six-game losing streak at Matthew Knight Arena, but he also tied the arena’s single-game scoring record with 36 points and kept earning recognition into this week.
On Tuesday, Love was named one of 20 finalists for the Wooden Award, one of college basketball’s major Player of the Year awards, and he was also named to the top-10 list of the Jerry West Award that honors the best shooting guard in college basketball.
Having scored 23 points two nights earlier at Oregon State, Love might even have picked up the Pac-12 Player of the Week award on Monday had Beaver guard Jordan Pope not hit a game-winning 3-pointer to upset the Wildcats and take the conference’s top weekly honor.
Arizona guard Caleb Love, center, seen here against Colorado on Jan. 4, leads the Pac-12 in scoring at 22.8 points per game.
If nothing else, Love locked himself onto the Pac-12’s first all-league team. After his 59-point two-game weekend, Love now leads the Pac-12 in scoring during conference games with an average of 22.8. He ranks 13th in field goal percentage during conference games (50.3) and is 22nd in 3-point percentage (39.1) shooting.
In all games, Love ranks third among Pac-12 scorers with an average of 19.3 points per game while shooting 44.9% and 34.7% from 3-point range, indicating that both his scoring and efficiency have risen considerably in conference games.
One reason: Criticized for shooting 29.9% from 3 last season for an underachieving North Carolina team, Love isn’t getting overheated. He said Saturday that, even though he felt he could have scored more than the MKA record, that he took what was there.
“Just making the right decisions, taking rhythm shots, shots that I work on in my workouts,” Love said.
Lloyd even called Love’s first-half performance “beautiful.” Love led Arizona to a seven-point halftime lead over Oregon by scoring 20 points on 8-for-12 shooting while making 3 of 5 3s, grabbing a rebound and a steal while dishing one assist to no turnovers.
“Man, he was good,” Lloyd said. “I didn’t think he was gonna miss…. His points, I felt like were really spread out. There was no two-minute explosion, just very consistent.”
Point guard Kylan Boswell said he didn’t see any extra confidence in Boswell or anything the Oregon defense was giving him in particular.
Arizona guard Caleb Love gives a big yell after getting loose for an emphatic dunk against UCLA on Jan. 20.
It was just Love being Love.
“That’s always gonna be two,” Boswell said, referring to Love’s jersey number. “That’s two. That’s always him.”
But, after that halftime discussion with Lloyd, Love was also the “two” that Lloyd was looking for: Some 12 seconds into the second half, Love drove inside for a short jumper. About a minute later, he drew a foul and hit both ensuing free throws to give the Wildcats a 12-point lead.
Love was off to 36 points, and the Wildcats were off to a much-needed nine-point win.
“We had the first possession, and Caleb made a nice, controlled shot,” Lloyd said.
Not a forced shot, nor a lunge that results in an offensive charge.
Just a basket, a drawn foul and a couple of free throws.
That’s all Lloyd was asking for.
“He delivered on the opportunities he got,” Lloyd said. “I mean, Caleb Love is a really good basketball player.”
Arizona men's basketball players Kylan Boswell and Caleb Love speak on their team's performance after the Wildcats defeated Oregon 87-78 in Eugene, Oregon on Jan. 27, 2024. (Video courtesy Arizona Athletics)
