Raised by UNC basketball fans, Caleb Love looks to make own memories with Tar Heels
Decked out in full North Carolina gear because his dad dressed him that way, little Caleb Love didn’t quite understand what was happening around him on that early April night in 2005.
He was 4 years old. He remembers knowing that the Tar Heels were his parents’ favorite team, but the details of UNC’s national championship win over Illinois at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis escape him. And his father, Dennis, was apparently really bad at taking pictures.
It’s not hard to come by a photo of Caleb Love in Carolina gear these days. But the St. Louis native and sophomore guard for the Tar Heels would like to form his own memories.
“I feel like we can win a national championship and I really believe that and so that’s all I’m focused on right now,” Love said.
From St. Louis to Chapel Hill
Dennis Love coached Caleb from the time he was a toddler, playing for smiles and laughs, to when rankings and reputations mattered in middle school as players begin positioning to attract scholarship offers.
Dennis never played organized basketball, so to make up for his perceived deficiency in game knowledge, he soaked up all he could from as many sources as possible. He even attended a coaching clinic held by now-retired Lon Kruger, who had head coaching stints at Illinois, UNLV and Oklahoma.
Dennis said he realized Caleb would be fine when, around fifth grade, he took the initiative to train on his own. He’d get up every morning before school and go for a jog. Dennis would catch him doing pushups and leg lifts on his own. And Caleb would nag him about driving him to the gym so he could play.
“When you coach your kid, you’re coaching them all the time,” Dennis Love said. “Even when you’re at home and you’re trying to watch a game together. You say, ‘Did you see how he did that?’ Always coaching him, and I never wanted to do that for real.”
Before Caleb got to high school, his dad was ready to just be a parent. He didn’t want to be that dad resented by his son for being overbearing.
Dennis entrusted Justin Tatum at Christian Brothers College High School to help elevate Caleb’s career. Tatum — the father of former Duke standout and Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum — coached at the preparatory school in the suburbs of St. Louis.
Caleb wasn’t ranked by the recruiting services entering his freshman or sophomore years. His first scholarship offer came from SIU-Edwardsville as a sophomore. But things changed quickly for him under Tatum’s tutelage.
And for a moment, it seemed Caleb would follow Jayson Tatum’s path from St. Louis to Durham when Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski paid a visit.
“When Coach K let Caleb know Jeremy Roach was committing, we knew it wouldn’t be Duke,” Dennis said. “Because Caleb wanted to be on the ball, and we felt like we’d known Jeremy for years and that was going to be the case. So at that point, Caleb looked at me and said he’s got to get that Carolina offer.”
The offer eventually came from UNC, and after Caleb’s official visit to Chapel Hill, he canceled his other planned visits, including to Kansas. It was like it was always supposed to be this way, right down to attending a high school where the president’s name was Michael Jordan.
“I was always in the Carolina gear my elementary school, middle school,” Caleb said. “When I got to high school, I had to get creative because actual college coaches were coming out to see me so I couldn’t really deck out in North Carolina, but as soon as I got that offer you know, I was excited.”
Going as Love goes
Carolina tends to go as Caleb Love does this season. Four of the five games he’s been held to single-digit scoring have ended in Tar Heel losses. But UNC is 12-0 when Love has five or more assists, including Monday’s win over Louisville.
Love is second on the team in scoring, averaging 15.3 points per game, and leads the team with 3.7 assists per game. He only gives himself a ‘B or C-plus’ grade on the season but believes he can be so much more.
“I want to say I haven’t did anything,” Love said. “Like I expect so much out of myself to a point where I know I can play so much better than I’ve been playing all season.”
He appears headed in the right direction at the right time for the Heels. After Love had 21 points and tied his career-high with seven assists at Virginia Tech, UNC coach Hubert Davis proclaimed it to be his best performance in a Carolina uniform.
“We’re one of the best teams in the country when he’s playing confident and that poise and he’s just playing like a vet, like a true vet,” UNC senior forward Leaky Black said. “...We all feed off that energy and that’s what we love to see.”
Staying focused
Love has a way of compartmentalizing bad plays so that they have no effect on the next play.
It happened in the Heels’ overtime win at Louisville, where he had the ball stolen from behind with 17 seconds left, which allowed the Cardinals to tie the game and send it into overtime. Love was just 2-for-14 shooting through the first 40 minutes, but took and made a 3-pointer to start the overtime.
Against Clemson, Love committed turnovers on three of five possessions in the last five minutes that allowed the Tigers to have a late lead. But he made a 3-pointer with 36 seconds left and drove for the game-winning assist to Brady Manek with 3.1 seconds to secure Carolina’s victory.
Love began using meditation last season at the suggestion of his mother and credits it for helping him stay even-keeled through his mistakes.
“Meditating just keeps me at the same level, like I’m never too high, I’m never too low,” Love said.
His father said playing under COVID-19 restrictions last season that limited crowds at games and drastically altered campus life took a toll on Caleb. And when he struggled on the court, social media — specifically Twitter — took its toll, too. But his father said meditation helped Caleb keep it all in perspective.
“Some people can take some real bad things about the kids and kind of make it personal and I know that that impacted him,” Dennis Love said. “So the meditation piece helped him deal with all of that and just understanding that peace of mind.”
Dennis would lose his mind if his son helps the Heels make a run like UCLA did last season from a bubble team to competing in the Final Four.
“It’d be like all accommodating for me to have Caleb wearing the uniform of the school that I cheer for, the school that he’s passionate about and it’s my son,” Dennis Love said. “Man, it’d be surreal.”
This story was originally published February 25, 2022 at 5:40 AM with the headline "Raised by UNC basketball fans, Caleb Love looks to make own memories with Tar Heels."