It’s been said at many points this season that so goes Caleb Love, so goes the Tar Heels. In North Carolina wins this season, he’s averaged 16.8 points on 41.2% shooting, while those numbers drop to 11.6 and 25% in losses. Carolina’s four worst losses on the season arguably came in blowout defeats to Kentucky, Miami, Wake Forest, and Duke, all games where Love finished in single digits in points.
In the NCAA Tournament first round game against Marquette, we saw that theory play out on the extremely positive side of that paradigm. As Love went completely off in the opening 20 minutes, so did UNC.