Arizona Wildcats Star Sets New Priority Entering Big 12 Basketball Season

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Arizona guard Caleb Love, ultimately, decided to come back to college basketball and the Wildcats for one more season.

His coach, Tommy Lloyd, is grateful. But that also mean he wants to challenge a player who should be an NBA draft pick next summer.

“I think if you come back for that extra year you should really challenge yourself to grow in other areas,” Lloyd said during Big 12 media day on Wednesday. “Those have been the conversations we've had with him, you know, maybe reshaping the way he plays a little bit. He’s been an incredible participant in that process and I'm looking forward to seeing it seeing it show on the court.”

As the Wildcats make their Big 12 debut, Love was selected as an all-conference preseason first-team player.

Last season with Arizona he was the Pac-12 Player of the Year after he finished fourth in the Pac-12 in overall scoring and second in the league in conference-only scoring with 20 points per game.

Along the way, he set a building record for scoring at Knight Arena in Oregon with a 36-point game against the Ducks.

Love’s decision to return was a tough one, but he went through the entire NBA draft process before opting to return. Previously, he spent three seasons at North Carolina, where he played for a Final Four team under Hubert Davis.

If he transferred to Arizona to play for a program that fit his skill set, he came back for another season to, as Lloyd said, get better. Plus, after going through the NBA draft scouting process, Love came away with a great idea of what he needed to improve.

Among the feedback the NBA provided was for him to become a more efficient player and work on what he called “body language,” in his case not reacting to missed shots.

But there was one other thing, something the Big 12 is known for, that scouts want to see him prioritize this season.

“Coming into this league, you’re going to have to guard the best of the best,” Love said. “So (defense) is something that I’m also focusing on.”

Arizona went 27-9 last year, its final year in the Pac-12, with a 15-5 conference record.

They’re changing conferences for the first time since the late 1970s, when they went from the WAC to what was then the Pac-8.

Among the players with college experience are guard Jaden Bradley, one of the nation’s top 3-point shooters from a year ago with the Wildcats, along with guard KJ Lewis, who was an all-Pac-12 freshman honorable mention and had one of the best assist-to-turnover ratios among freshmen last season.

The Wildcats were No. 5 in the Big 12 preseason poll and received a first-place vote, along with 179 total points. Arizona opens the regular season on Nov. 4 against Canisius.