College hoops world draws comparison between Damian Lillard and Caleb Love as Arizona bags dominant win against Oregon: "He plays just like Lillard"

By Cabral Opiyo

Modified Jan 28, 2024 23:54 GMT

Basketball stars, Damian Lillard and Caleb Love

Arizona Wildcats guard Caleb Love exploded for a career-high 36 points as the Wildcats beat the Oregon Ducks 87-78 on the road in dominant fashion to bounce back from the disappointing 83-80 loss to the Oregon State Beavers last time out.

The $630,000 NIL-valued Love went 12-of-18 from the field and sunk five 3-pointers to steer the Wildcats to a comfortable win on the road.

After the game, Love was typically modest in his assessment of his sensational performance.

“I was just trying to play within the offense and let my teammates create for me,” Love said.

Tommy Lloyd, the Arizona coach, summarized Love's performance simply during his postgame news conference.

“It was nice that we had the first possession and I think Caleb made a nice controlled shot,” Lloyd said. “I just felt like the ball was in the right guys' hands today and, with good pace, we were pretty methodical in how we wanted to approach things. We got to the things that are effective for us.”

The CBB fraternity on Instagram was full of praise for Caleb Love, with some even comparing his style of play to the Milwaukee Bucks guard Damian Lillard.

Tommy Lloyd’s advice to Caleb Love: Don’t play for records, play the right way

Caleb Love has now had ten games with 20+ points or more this season and was recently the recipient of the Pac-12 Player of the Week award just after getting named to the Wooden Award midseason watch list.

Love had 20.0 points going into the break against Oregon, and his coach, Tommy Lloyd, revealed during his postgame news conference the piece of advice that he gave the explosive guard.

“I told Caleb coming out of halftime, I think he had 20 at half, I told Caleb, if you score 20 points, and we win, I mean, that’s the objective here. So just manage the game and make good decisions. You don’t need to play for a record. You don’t need to play for any of that stuff. Just play the right way and that’s what he’s really been doing for us,” Lloyd said.

After being named the Pac-12 Player of the Week, Love's comments will plant more than a few ominous seeds in future opponent's minds.

“I think I’m still learning,” Love said. “The system is different, but I think I’m kind of getting the hang of it just right about now.”

With bottom sides Stanford and California up next for Arizona, Caleb Love will be looking to pad his statistics and gather a few more conference honors as the basketball season reaches a crescendo.