NEWARK, N.J. — He’s back.
If there’s a single player the Duke men’s basketball program or any of its fans would love to not run into when the stakes are this high for the Blue Devils, Caleb Love would be that player.
Love used to play for Duke’s biggest rival, fellow Atlantic Coast Conference program North Carolina. Now he plays for Duke’s next opponent, Arizona.
They meet Thursday in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division I tournament, with Love, now a fifth-year senior averaging 16.8 points a game for the fourth-seeded Wildcats (24-12), trying to wreck another season for the top-seeded Blue Devils (33-3), who have seen this movie before.
Love was the one who burned Duke for 22 points in 2022 to hand coach Mike Krzyzewski a loss in his last game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. He’s the one who, four weeks later, hit the 3-pointer with 25 seconds left, then a couple of more free throws to put away Duke at the Final Four — and end the retiring Coach K’s career.