Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd admitted it was one game.
Senior Caleb Love admitted he had/has a confidence problem, maybe a thinking problem.
But for one night all that went away in its 96-64 win over visiting Samford.
Oh, what a win does for the psyche. But again, it was only one game.
“I’m so proud of Caleb, but it’s one game,” Lloyd said after UA’s big win. “We gotta game on Saturday. “Do it again.”
That would help to move Arizona to above .500 in what seems like an eternity. At least after Wednesday night’s win moved the Wildcats to 5-5 overall with one game remaining on its non-conference schedule. It plays Central Michigan on Saturday.
But before that they will celebrate Wednesday’s win. Love finished with 23 points and looked like the Love of the past – like last season’s past. Hitting shots. Going to the free-throw line. Helping Arizona shoot a season-high 58 percent. As he told the ESPN-plus crew after the game, “I didn’t forget how to play basketball.”
“He played good – Caleb’s a good player,” Lloyd said. “And I’m going to hang with him. That’s my job. We’re going to hang with him. I’m not a fair-weather guy. I love my players, and listen, I hold them accountable. We have a lot of conversations about things; we have the real talks. My job is to kind of help a young man through tough times and through struggle.
“That’s my job, and I’m going to do that. And you know what? I’ll wear it when it doesn’t go good, and when it does go good, I won’t take any credit for it. I mean that that’s just how I’m going to operate.”
All seemed to work well enough to get the easy win. Temper that in knowing it was against small-school Samford, but still Arizona needed a brain-cleansing win.
Love started it from, well, the start – hitting his first shot seconds into Arizona’s first possession. It was a 3-pointer no less. He had just 19 of 68 3s before Wednesday night’s game. He was hitting just 36 percent of overall shots.
He hadn’t been the Caleb everyone – well most everyone – has come to, um, love.
Thus, the question was it a thinking problem or a confidence problem. He said “a little of both.”
“Obviously, when you’re not shooting the ball well or you’re not making shots that you know you usually make in practice or workouts,” he said, “you get in your head a little bit. You just got to double down on your workouts, and double down on your faith. You have to still believe that you can make those shots. My team has got confidence in me, my coach has got confidence in me. So, it shouldn’t be a question about my confidence.”
Again, it’s just one game but the stat line looks much better, 23 points by hitting 7 of 14 shots, 3 of 9 from beyond the arc. He added six rebounds and four assists.
And all seemed right in the Arizona basketball world. It helped UA run more in transition and get in the flow of what was once – maybe again – a hit-hard offense.
Samford coach Bucky McMillan said Arizona looked “pretty dang good” on Wednesday. He said he was disappointed how his team handled Arizona’s transition game (a point of emphasis) and how it couldn’t stop Love.
He called him a “multi-dimensional” player who could probably get going more than he has this season.
“He’s a great player,” McMillan said. “He can win games by himself. And when he’s playing well, they’re obviously a problem.”
As for the transition game – something UA has lacked much of the season in part because team’s have made it that way – UA was able to move the ball better in transition and on offense. In fact, Arizona went on a 10-0 run in the second half to help secure the win.
“Transition is great, but you also have to be good at the half court,” Lloyd said. “I thought our ball movement was better just overall today, just had a little bit of feel to it. You can see that it showed in the assist numbers (23). We were connecting a few more passes, and that’s really important. The way we play passing the ball is so important, and quite frankly, just hasn’t been quite good enough up to this point. So hopefully we can keep making progress there.”
Again, it was one game … but still, Arizona will take it given the circumstances of the season.
