Why Did Caleb Love Leave the University of North Carolina?

The transfer portal has made college basketball much more entertaining. It has made the sport much better too, as long as those transfers break your team’s way.

Caleb Love joined the Arizona Wildcats for 2023–2024 after leading the University of North Carolina Tar Heels in scoring in 2022–2023. He had an amazing 2022–2023 season, averaging 16.7 points, 3.7 rebounds, and shooting 37.8 percent.

According to Caleb, he left UNC because it was best for him, plain and simple. On March 27, 2023, he tweeted a goodbye message to the school and team. Part of it read, “I’ve taken some time with my family to re-evaluate what’s best for me to continue to grow as a player and I’ve decided to enter the transfer portal to continue my journey. Thank you, UNC family and community, for embracing a kid from St. Louis. I will love you all forever.”

The goodbye tweet doesn’t exactly explain why Caleb left the historically great basketball school. The most likely reason is UNC’s less-than-historically great 2022–2023 season.

The 2021–2022 UNC Men’s Basketball season was excellent. The team, led by Caleb, went all the way to the 2022 NCAA Tournament finals. They lost to the Kansas Jayhawks in a nail-biter. Caleb rolled his ankle in that game and still nearly tied the exciting game.

On April 5, 2022, ESPN covered the game and said, “Consider that throughout the course of the game, star forward Brady Manek took a WWE-level elbow to the head, dynamo guard Caleb Love twisted his ankle while working away from the ball, and Puff Johnson interrupted the game of his life by bowing over to vomit on the floor. (While KenPom doesn't record such acts, it's likely to be remembered as the first on-floor vomit in NCAA championship history.)”

The 2022–2023 UNC team, Caleb’s junior season, was ranked #1 in the pre-season. The team didn’t even make the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, let alone reach the finals. Unfortunately, the team couldn't live up to those expectations and Caleb took the brunt of social media abuse.

On the same day as Caleb’s Tweet, Tar Heel Illustrated publisher Andrew Jones was on the THI Podcast for the episode “Why Caleb Love Transferred From UNC.” The publisher agreed with Caleb’s decision to leave, saying, “People are going to maintain any narrative they want, but I wish they wouldn’t. I wish they’d tone it down with him, he gave this program an awful lot and now he’s making a really wise decision for himself and I think this is a good decision for North Carolina.”

Caleb was named the 2023–2024 Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year. The Pac 12 said, “The league's fourth-leading scorer at 18.7 points per game, Love has done the majority of his damage where needed most — away from home — averaging a league-best 20.1 points in 15 games away from McKale Center.”

Caleb helped lead Arizona to the Sweet 16 in this year’s tournament. On March 27, 2024, before their game against Clemson, Arizona Associate Head Coach Jack Murphy told Yahoo News, “Everybody had these preconceived notions about the kid coming out of Carolina and it couldn't have been further from the truth. He's been an amazing teammate, an amazing competitor, and a great learner.”

Unfortunately, the Sweet 16 game against Clemson didn't go Arizona's way. Caleb went 0-9 from 3-point range. Arizona lost 77 to 72.

Caleb's old team, UNC, also lost in the Sweet 16 round. Former teammate RJ Davis also went 0-9 from 3-point range. UNC lost to Alabama 89 to 87.

According to former ESPN-er Jared Berson, it's the only time any two players have shot 0-9 or worse from 3-point range on the same day in NCAA Tournament history.

Even after that historically bad night, it shouldn't matter all that much for Caleb's future. He is currently projected to be drafted in the second round of the 2024 NBA Draft according to NBA Draftroom.