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Michigan basketball lands commitment from former North Carolina guard Caleb Love

clayton-sayfieby: Clayton Sayfie04/07/23CSayf23
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Caleb Love officially entered the transfer portal on Wednesday (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

Michigan Wolverines basketball has picked up its second transfer portal commitment of the day, with former North Carolina guard Caleb Love pledging roughly an hour after former Seton Hall forward Tray Jackson joined the fold. Love, a former five-star prospect in 2020, spent three seasons in Chapel Hill and has two years of eligibility remaining.

Love, a 6-foot-4, 200-pounder, averaged 16.7 points, 3.7 rebounds and 2.8 assists per contest in 2022-23, shooting 45.5 percent on twos and 29.9 percent on threes (244 attempts). The Tar Heels were ranked No. 1 in the preseason AP poll rankings but flopped with a 20-13 record, missing the NCAA Tournament and declining an NIT invite.

Love is the fourth-ranked player on On3’s transfer portal rankings.

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The 2022-23 North Carolina backcourt struggled, and it was no surprise Love decided to move on. The Tar Heels posted their fewest amount of assists in a season since the stat began being tracked in 1968-69. Love’s shot selection, too, was heavily criticized. Despite having a low field goal percentage, Love attempted 28.4 percent of the Tar Heels’ shots when he was on the floor. On average, Love missed 9.5 field goal attempts per game.

Love was the darling of the 2022 NCAA Tournament. His hot shooting led the Tar Heels on a surprise run to the national championship game, before they lost to Kansas in a wild final. He scored 27 points in the second half of a Sweet 16 win over UCLA and hit the game-sealing three-pointer to bury Duke in the Final Four. He scored 28 points in the win over the Blue Devils.

The newest Michigan guard averaged 15.9 points, 3.6 and 3.4 rebounds per game in 2021-22, shooting a much better clip from three-point range, 36 percent.

Love has proven to be a stellar free throw shooter during his career. He made 80.8 percent of his attempts as a freshman and upped that mark to 86.3 percent as a sophomore. Like some of his other statistics, his percentage dipped to 76.5 percent this past season.

Love joins a Michigan backcourt with a returning starter in sophomore-to-be point Dug McDaniel. Graduate guard Jaelin Llewellyn, who suffered a season-ending knee injury in December, plans to be back and could be fully healthy by the time the season begins in early November. Freshman George Washington III — a top-120 combo guard recruit out of Dayton, Ohio — joins the team this summer.

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