Reigning Pac-12 Player of the Year Caleb Love may have an uphill battle to earning All-Big 12 honors in his first season leading Arizona in a new conference. And that battle may have nothing to do with on-court production.
Love, the fifth-leading scorer in the Big 12 for an Arizona team that has won 11 of its last 12 games and is tied for first place in the regular-season conference title race, seems to have irked Arizona State coach Bobby Hurley, who after his Sun Devils fell 81-72 to then-No. 20 Arizona on Saturday, left his postgame press conference with a parting shot seemingly aimed in Love’s direction.
“I will tell you this: I do get a vote for [Big 12] All-Conference,” Hurley said. “And I can tell you who’s not getting a vote.”
Love could still earn All-Big 12 honors without a vote from Hurley, who is just one of 16 voters on the panel of Big 12 head coaches.
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Hurley didn’t explicitly name Love. But the comment came after Hurley expressed frustration with Arizona after a chippy second half that included Love getting headbutted by ASU’s BJ Freeman and ended with Hurley encouraging his team to skip the handshake line for fear of further escalation of the tensions.
Hurley’s annoyance spawned, he claimed, from “relentless chatter” during the game from Arizona and the officials’ policing — or lack thereof — the in-game commentary. Both Freeman and Love were ejected from the game for their brief dust-up, but the rivalry game had some extra verbal hostility throughout it from both sides, to be sure, which was largely allowed to happen.
“It was relentless, constant chatter from a couple of the Arizona players that wasn’t policed properly,” Hurley said after the game. “It was done with no class.”
Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd for his part took responsibility for his team’s actions and called the confrontation “disappointing.”
“We want to be a program that, when tough things happen, we want to respond with class,” Lloyd said. “And I don’t know if we did or didn’t. But just a tough moment in an emotional game. I’ve got a lot of respect for Bobby and Arizona State.”
Love was a named as a Third Team AP All-American last season in his Pac-12 Player of the Year campaign. In 21 games this season he’s averaging 16.2 points, 3.1 assists, 4.4 rebounds and shooting 31.9% from 3-point range.
Arizona will play host to Arizona State on March 4.
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