By R.L. Bynum
One day after his former UNC teammate RJ Davis was named the ACC Player of the Year, Arizona guard Caleb Love was named the Pac-12 Player of the Year. They both were honored Tuesday by The Sporting News.
The league, in its final season of existence, announced its postseason awards on Tuesday.
“God’s timing, not mine,” Love wrote on X (formerly Twitter) after getting the news.
Earlier on Tuesday, Davis was named to The Sporting News‘ All-American First Team and Love made the third team.
Love and Davis have something else in common this season: Their teams both won at Duke this season with former Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski watching from courtside. The Wildcats knocked off the Blue Devils in Cameron Indoor Stadium 78–73 on Nov. 10, thanks to Love’s clutch free throws at the end.
The No. 7 Wildcats (24–7) open play in the final Pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas on Thursday at 3 p.m. with a quarterfinal game against either Washington or USC.
Love is the 12th Wildcat in program history to earn the honor, and he was joined on the 10-player All-Pac-12 First Team by teammate Oumar Ballo, a redshirt senior center.
Love averaged 20 points per game in conference play and shot 44.6% from the floor and 37.3% from 3-point range. He also averaged 4.7 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game in the Pac-12, as the Wildcats captured the Pac-12 regular-season title by one game over Washington State.
Love scored a career-high 36 points in the win at Oregon, scored 20 or more points 10 times in conference games and made multiple 3-point field goals in 17 out of 20 games against Pac-12 opponents. His 82 3-pointers were one shy of breaking into the top 10 in Arizona history for a single season.
Previous Arizona players to win Pac-12 Player of the Year honors include Sean Elliott (1988, 1989), Chris Mills (1993), current Georgia Tech coach Damon Stoudamire (1995), Mike Bibby (1998), Jason Terry (1999), Derrick Williams (2011), Nick Johnson (2014), Deandre Ayton (2018) and Bennedict Mathurin (2022).
Photo via @ArizonaMBB
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