Lucas: The Education Of Caleb Love

By Adam Lucas

As soon as the numbers on his phone came into focus, Caleb Love knew he was in trouble.

It was March of 2021, and the Tar Heels were preparing to depart for an altered NCAA Tournament that included being housed in an NCAA-created bubble in Indianapolis but playing in West Lafayette.

It had been a challenging season for Carolina's freshman point guard. His credentials were solid; he'd been selected to the All-ACC Freshman team, and he'd won ACC Rookie of the Week twice. He put up 25 points in a win at Duke in an empty Cameron Indoor Stadium and scored in double figures in six of the last seven games.

But despite shooting a ghastly 31.6 percent from the field and 26.6 percent from the three-point line, he also took 90 more shots than any of his teammates. His assist/turnover ratio hovered around 1:1 for most of the season.

And now he was late for the bus to the airport. He knew it as soon as he saw the time, knew immediately that the time on his phone was the time he was supposed to be at the Smith Center.

"I woke up scared," he says now. "And I knew right then that I don't ever want to do this again. I don't want that to be me and I don't want that to be my reputation. Sometimes you have to go through things to get to where you are now."

And where is he now? You doubtless already know that a year after being late for the team plane, he made one of the biggest shots in Carolina Basketball history, applying the finishing touch to Duke in the 2022 Final Four with a three-pointer over Mark Williams.

But, poor freshman percentages aside, Caleb Love has always been able to make shots. That's how he made a reputation for himself in St. Louis, that's how he earned a spot on the McDonald's All-America team, and that's how he caught the eye of Roy Williams during the recruiting process.

What's different now is what you don't see. This summer, Love was working on an NIL project with some teammates. It was Love—formerly the one who didn't speak to strangers, formerly the teenager who wouldn't consistently make eye contact—who initiated thanking the business for their involvement, shaking the hand of their representative. It might seem very simple. But it was progress.

He has benefited from the tutelage of Carolina director of operations Eric Hoots, whom he cites as an important influence, and Hubert Davis. "If you are late in the NBA," Davis told him after the 2021 NCAA Tournament incident, "they will cut you. At best, it's coming out of your paycheck." He has used those experiences to make fundamental changes.

"I absolutely see the change in him," says his father, Dennis Love. "The adversity from his freshman season really grew him up. He had the opportunity to go into a shell, but he did the opposite. He's matured in how he thinks about life. His mom and I don't have to tell him what to do anymore. He cares about that stuff himself and he handles it himself. It's not his parents carrying it for him."

The most noteworthy aspect of the way Love has celebrated his monumental shot against Duke has been the way he has not celebrated it. This isn't 2020 or even 2021 anymore. If you are a Tar Heel basketball player, and you made the biggest basket in the program's history since Luke Maye in 2017, and that shot came against Duke, you can have a very fun and productive life on Franklin Street.

Love sampled that scene this spring. But he found it repetitive and decided it wasn't the best fit for him. This fall, you'd be more likely to find him alone on a Friday night, playing a video game or watching the NBA.

"My teammates call me lame," he says with a grin. "I used to worry about missing out. But I'm trying to look at a bigger picture. It's going to get greater later. We're going to make plenty of memories when it's all said and done. I'm locked in on one goal, and that's a national championship. For me to do that, I want to do things that better this team. Those are the choices I want to make."

One of those choices is establishing daily 7 a.m. shooting sessions at the Smith Center. Players have 24-hour access to the gym, and many of them get their extra shooting done before or after a 3 p.m. practice. But Love wants to be there early.

"I like getting my day started that way because I feel like a lot of people across the country aren't doing that," he says. "I feel like I'm getting ahead and getting a workout in before everyone else wakes up. Get my work in, go to class, get my day started. It feels great walking out of there knowing I got work in and got better."

Some of that initiative is simple maturation. But some is genetic. Love was extremely close with his maternal grandfather, Benny Shelby, who lived in Kansas City. His grandson referred to Benny as "the king of Kansas City," because any time Caleb visited him in Kansas City, no matter where they went, they always encountered someone who knew the older gentleman.

The Shelby family owned and operated the Kansas City Juke House, a legendary jazz and blues spot in the Kansas City Jazz District, and eventually expanded their operations to multiple other businesses.

Meanwhile, Benny and his grandson became inseparable.

"I always joked with my dad that he was a great father but an even better grandfather," says Love's mother, Alecia Thompson. "When my dad called me, the first thing he'd say would be, 'Where's Caleb?' and I'd say, 'Remember me? I'm your kid.'"

Shelby died in August 2021 at the age of 78. Since then, Love has had the same pregame routine for every game with the Tar Heels:

"Before every game, I have his picture in my locker," Love says. "It's a picture of the two of us. First, I pray. Then I kind of talk to him. Having that picture in my locker makes me feel like he's here with me. I listen to my music, and before I go out to the tunnel, I tap the picture, just to say, 'I'm here with you.'"

What his parents have noticed is that Love is showing Shelby's influence in more ways than just his pregame routine. Thompson says her son recently told her, "Being on time is being late." In addition to being a significant departure from his freshman attention to the clock, the phrase sounded very familiar: it's something Benny Shelby used to say.

The Caleb Love transformation is not completely finished. He is still just 21 years old, not yet a finished product. It's a process, and there have been times during the preseason that Davis has again reminded Love that body language and constant effort matter. Sometimes shots don't fall and for just a second, that teenage kid from St. Louis is noticeable again. Love was treated to some in-depth film review of a lackluster effort in a scrimmage situation last month.

But his coaches also marvel at the changes that have taken place in the last 12 months. "He's taken three charges in practice in the last week," Hubert Davis marveled over the weekend, including one on Saturday on 260-pound Will Shaver that had the Carolina head coach pumping his fist in excitement.

And five minutes into Carolina's exhibition game against Johnson C. Smith, there was Love diving on the floor to secure a loose ball in a game the Tar Heels would eventually win by 61 points.

"I've been waiting to see that play for his entire life," says Dennis Love. "He has never, ever done that before. I told him I didn't care about him scoring a single point, because that play indicates who you are. The fact that he dove on the floor says he's ready to be a leader. He understands what Carolina basketball is about and what it takes. I've known him all his life. I've begged for that. We all know he's talented. But when you take the talent and put in that type of effort, I don't think he'll have a peer."

Scoreboard Slider

University of North Carolina Athletics

Related News

Related Videos