Caleb Love Is Key to Arizona Wildcats Finding Success During Big 12 Play
The Arizona Wildcats men’s basketball team received a major boost when star guard Caleb Love decided to return to the team for one last season.
As the reigning Pac-12 Player of the Year, his presence should help the team in their transition to the loaded Big 12 Conference that features several championship contenders.
Entering the 2024-25 campaign, the Wildcats were expected to be among them.
Tommy Lloyd had a roster loaded with high-end talent. They landed several strong players, such as Trey Townsend, Anthony Dell’Orso and Tobe Awaka in the transfer portal. Star freshman Carter Bryant was another excellent addition to the holdovers on the roster.
Unfortunately, things haven’t come together as quickly as anyone would have hoped.
Entering their conference schedule, the Wildcats are 6-5 on the year.
They have destroyed the Quad 3 and 4 teams they faced to this point, representing all six of their victories where they have won by an average of 40.2 points per contest.
That means they have gone 0-5 against Quad 1 opponents, which are the games that matter most when it comes to boosting resumes for March.
Arizona will have plenty of opportunities to rack up quality wins, but they will need Love to start performing at the level he is capable of reaching.
One area he needs to improve is his efficiency on offense.
He is shooting only 29.4% from 3-point range, which is the lowest of his collegiate career, while attempting 7.7 per game. One positive is that his 2-point shooting percentage is at the highest mark if his career, as he is making 53.7% inside the arc.
If he can get his jump shot going, his scoring numbers will rise to the totals that he has produced in the past despite his attempts dropping for the second consecutive campaign.
Right now, he is averaging 15.2 points per game; only his freshman year, when he averaged 10.9, did he score fewer.
Hopefully, the last two non-conference matchups against the Samford Bulldogs and Central Michigan Chippewas will get him on track ahead of Big 12 play.
He shot 16-of-29 from the field in those blowouts, score 47 points. But, he was only 6-of-17 from long range.
While that is an improvement from his season percentages, it won’t be enough for the Wildcats to contend for a conference championship.
Love has not been good against the upper-echelon opponents thus far, and there are plenty more on the schedule.
In the opinion of Myron Medcalf of ESPN, Arizona is one of the teams that need to figure things out ASAP, and Love needs to be at the heart of that turnaround effort.
"Caleb Love's return for his senior season -- he won Pac-12 player of the year in 2023-24 -- seemed to position Tommy Lloyd's squad for immediate success in the program's first season in the Big 12. But the nonconference path for the Wildcats has been littered with problems. An Arizona squad that was ranked 10th in the Associated Press Top 25 preseason poll recorded its fifth loss of the season just over a week ago. With an 0-5 record against Quad 1 opponents -- the victories that boost and validate a team's seeding in March -- the Wildcats will need a miraculous course correction during Big 12 play and an improved Love (29% from beyond the arc) to reach the NCAA tournament."
If he cannot find his groove, this is going to an incredibly disappointing campaign.
The Wildcats have matched their number of non-conference losses in 11 games that they had in the first three seasons under Lloyd combined.
