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Here’s hoping it is a big win-win for Caleb Love and UNC.
So, the biggest question about the future of Carolina basketball has been answered. Lightning rod scoring guard Caleb Love will play his fourth, and possibly fifth, college season somewhere else besides Chapel Hill.
The announcement came Monday, and reactions have been mixed as we might have expected. No. 2 was easily the most talked about player during the recent season, as he never found the streak shooting touch that led the Tar Heels in their 2022 March Magic run, including two wins over Duke that neither fan base will ever forget for diametrically different reasons.
In my opinion, Caleb Love’s career that included some of the biggest shots in Carolina history should be forever celebrated.
On March 4, 2022, at Cameron Indoor Stadium, Love was one of four Tar Heels with 20 points or more. His 22 included going 12 of 12 from the free throw line, plus 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 turnover and a steal. His assist to Armando Bacot for a dunk gave the Tar Heels a 10-point lead and moved Coach K’s retirement party from fear to funereal. And it gets better from there.
Against UCLA in the NCAA Sweet 16, Love continued heating up. While playing all 40 minutes, he scored 30 points that included six 3-pointers and one that broke a 64-64 tie with 1:03 left. Bacot saved a ball from going out of bounds and threw it right to Love, who drained his last 3 ball from the top of the key and then assured the 73-66 win with two free throws.
And in the national semifinals against Duke in New Orleans, Love hit the shot heard around the basketball world over the outstretched fingers of Duke 7-footer Mark Williams with 25 seconds remaining. He then sealed the 81-77 win for the ages with three free throws. Of course, that ended Mike Krzyzewski’s career on a second straight loss to his archrival.
That majestic jumper is captured in framed photos all over Tar Heel Nation and is the signature shot among many that should be Love’s everlasting legacy. With his shooting and playmaking down the stretch of the surprise season, Love deserves to be warmly welcomed back whenever he returns.
Love played under pressure from the day he stepped on campus for good in the summer of 2020. He arrived with the dreaded one-and-done albatross around his neck and was listed on NBA mock draft boards before he ever played a college game. By agreeing it didn’t work out for either side, both Carolina and Love are free to start anew with no regrets.
Wherever Caleb winds up, he deserves our thanks for all the memories.
Featured image via Todd Melet
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Fans – college basketball fans in particular – regardless of program, tend to operate in a “what have you done for me lately” mindset. Last year was last year and this past train wreck is still fresh in many minds.
NOT to say your premise is incorrect … but common sense and knee-jerk sports fans are mutually exclusive.
Oh, thank God, it’s over…not Caleb’s tenure in Chapel Hill, but Chansky finally chanted about Caleb, and it ani’t over til Chansky chants. I agree that it is time to move on, and I propose the next chant for Chansky regarding why the 2023 Tar Heels dropped 13 games when they had a lead with 5 minutes to go. Another sports pundit, halfway through the season, used an endearing term to describe the inability of the Tar Heels to hold the lead. He said “They (the Heels) did not “step on their throats.” Very colorful, but not fully descriptive. Two factors to explain this inability to close out a victory are related. First, Happy Hubert ran his starting five into the ground by not using his bench. Who can ever forget the image of Brady, bent over, puking his guts out, at the end of the Kansas game? The so-called Iron Five had nothing left in their tanks at the end of the Kansas game, and the 2023 players were run into the ground, not because Hubert did not have confidence in the players, but because Hubert lacks confidence in himself, and is not willing to risk his reputation by not playing his starting five the full game. Losing close games is related to not playing the bench because the players, like Caleb, played 40 minutes, and was exhausted at the end of the game. What Bubba should have learned from the Matt Doherty episode, is that Carolina is not an affirmative action, on-the-job-training venue. Assistant coaches do not cut it here. We needed an experienced winning head coach, and UNC made the same mistake in hiring Hubert that the former AD made when he hired Bunting in football. We, (the royal collective) WE, deserve better. Next year, Happy Hubert, apparently will not have to worry about playing his bench. At the rate of transfers, he will not have a bench to play. Note to Hubert: the style of basketball you are playing is not Carolina fast break basketball. It is awful to watch and trashes the 60 year tradition of basketball excellence based upon rebounding, steals, fast breaks and “tearing the nails out of the floor on defense.” (quote from Roy Williams)
I think it very unfortunate what is happening because of the portal crap. Under the old rules Caleb would most likely stay for his senior year. This year was a tough one for the young man, but like Chansky I’m not forgetting last year. He will forever be the Tar Heel that ruined the dook coaches last game and ended his last NCAA hopes. He had help, but no one except the great Hansbrough can equal his success with respect to dook.
Is it better that we part ways? I don’t know. I just hate to see a young man with three years invested in the school and the program leaving.