R.J. Davis and Caleb Love are forever linked. They were born less than a month apart. They entered the college basketball ecosystem together, two cogs of Roy Williams’ last North Carolina recruiting class. In 2022, they evolved into the two staples of one of college basketball’s most surprising March runs, and also one of college basketball’s most infamous falls from preseason No. 1 to being left out in the cold on Selection Sunday in 2023.
If this is how it all ends, it’s cruel — and, oddly, somewhat fitting.
Love, the reigning Pac-12 Player of the Year, picked the worst time for his worst game of the season. An airmailed, one-legged floater and nine missed 3-pointers later, Love sat chalked filled with emotion in a Crypto.com Arena locker room after second-seeded Arizona fell to red-hot Clemson, 77-72, in Thursday’s Sweet 16.
Not too long after on the same court in Los Angeles, Davis, the reigning ACC Player of the Year, also picked the worst time for his worst game of the season. He, too, missed all nine 3-pointers in UNC’s devastating, 89-87, loss to Alabama on the doorstep of the Elite Eight.
Love’s 5-for-18 showing wasn’t all that surprising because of his topsy-turvy past, but this was the outlier for Davis. It was just the first time all season that Davis hadn’t made a trey in a game. Gutting.
Love and Davis are the last of a generation. The Class of 2020 is the final group that will get an extra free year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
If Love and Davis want to return to college, they can.
The 2024 NBA Draft is poor, but Davis and Love are regarded as fringe second-round options … at best. There’s a risk of little guaranteed money. Landing one of the precious few two-way deals is not a guarantee.
Dayton lured star big man DaRon Holmes II back to school with a lucrative NIL package and he was a better NBA prospect than both Davis and Love with a much higher shot at getting drafted. Imagine what Arizona or North Carolina could cobble together? There’s little doubt that the guaranteed money Love and Davis would get in college next year would rival (or swamp) whatever the NBA could offer. Of course, the chase for the green-stuffed, second contract in the NBA is tempting, but you have to get to that point first. Many don’t.
It’s a similar question that Terrence Shannon Jr. faced last offseason. Shannon, a better NBA prospect than both Davis and Love, suffered an ugly NCAA Tournament exit at the hands of Eric Musselman’s Arkansas club. Without a guaranteed second-round promise, Shannon opted to return to Illinois for Year 5. He’s been the best player in the NCAA Tournament and, if his legal issues are resolved, his stock has risen considerably.
Age, seemingly, matters a little less and less for the best teams in the NBA, like the Denver Nuggets, who are just trying to find cheap role players to fit around MVP big man Nikola Jokic and don’t care if they are 24 (like ex-Villanova stud Collin Gillespie) or 21 (like ex-UCLA forward Peyton Watson).
It’s not a risk-free bet, but a fifth year of college basketball was good for Shannon, Holmes, Kentucky’s Antonio Reeves, Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht and UConn’s Cam Spencer.
This Saturday was supposed to be the much-anticipated reunion for Davis and Love, but maybe it’s just one, long year away.
