Arizona coach on Caleb Love: 'He's got to be better than that'
Tommy Lloyd knows he doesn't have the best collection of outside shooters in college basketball.
And he's fine with that.
The Arizona Wildcats have lost two consecutive games for the first time since November, and they shot very poorly in both losses. How poorly? A combined 7-of-45 from the 3-point line, which is 15.5%.
If they had managed to shoot 20%, the Wildcats probably would have won both games. But Lloyd is more concerned with the little things his team failed to do in the losses — namely taking care of the basketball.
"You've got to shoot good shots. I mean that's it. We've got to shoot good shots. And you've got to live with the make or miss," Lloyd said after Arizona's 62-58 loss to Houston. "It's no secret. I'm not telling you anything crazy. We're not the best three-point shooting team you've ever seen. This is not the 2017 Golden State Warriors. We're a gritty team, and it's a little bit ugly sometimes. But that's just how we ended up being built. And we're okay with it. We've won a lot of games doing that."
"I thought we had some good looks at three. It would have been nice if a few extra ones would have went down. Obviously the last couple of games would have made a huge difference, but they're not. But we're still in the game, giving ourselves a chance to win. And at the end of the day in the Big 12 that matters. I'm not a guy that's going to sit here and say we've got to make 10 threes to win the game. No, we've just got to score more points than the other team. And we had an opportunity to do that today and we didn't."
Caleb Love 'should never get a pass tipped'
In Arizona's 73-70 loss to Kansas State, the Wildcats turned the ball over 17 times. Against Houston they only turned it over 11 times, but five of those came from senior guard Caleb Love.
Love was outstanding in the first half against Houston, helping stake the Wildcats to a 30-25 halftime lead by scoring 11 points on 5-of-10 shooting. He picked up some easy buckets in transition and attacked the paint against Houston's smaller guards.
But Love disappeared in the second half. He didn't score in the final 9:30 of the game and finished 1-of-8 from the 3-point line. Over the last three games Love is 2-of-21 from the 3-point line.
Love also had three critical second-half turnovers and let LJ Cryer get loose for two huge 3-pointers that sparked Houston's comeback. Cryer scored 10 of his 15 points in the final 8:32 of the game.
After Arizona's four-point loss to Houston, Lloyd expressed his displeasure with how Love took care of the ball, and how his team defended Cryer.
"We could play with better habits and better fundamentals. I think Caleb (Love) had a bunch of passes tipped today," Lloyd said. "He's got to be better than that. He's got to be better than that. I don't care what he shoots, he should never get a pass tipped, and he's got to be better than that in those situations."
"We get a lead down the stretch, you want to manage that a little bit better. I thought we got Cryer two three-pointers in a row, and kind of later in possessions," Lloyd said. "It might have been a late ball screen and might have ended up with a crossmatch situation ... crazy things happen sometimes late in those possessions and you can't give their best shooter a wide open three-point shot. Especially when you have a lead."
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-029877d49238355bd3388a94f90e3c72.jpg "Ben Sherman")
Ben Sherman has been covering the sports world for most of his 27-year journalism career, including 17 years with The Oregonian/OregonLive. A basketball junkie, March Madness is his favorite time of the year.