Missouri Basketball: Potential impact of landing transfer Caleb Love

Caleb Love is one of the top available guard transfers and Missouri Basketball is one of the teams reportedly involved. Can the Tigers land him?

Missouri Basketball is coming off one of its best years in a while. In his first year with the Tigers, Head Coach Dennis Gates exceeded all expectations. Leading Mizzou to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, something that had not happened since 2010. Now all eyes turn to the off-season. As of now Missouri still has some questions when it comes to filling out all of the available roster spots. And much like last year, it looks like Dennis Gates is looking to the transfer portal to round out his roster.

What we do know as of right now is that Missouri will need to find some players to take over the scoring production left behind with the departures of D’Moi Hodge and De’Andre Gholston. The Tigers have already found one player to take on some of that workload in the transfer portal, landing John Tonje out of Colorado State. But Missouri will most likely need another scorer in their high-paced offense. This is where Caleb Love comes in.

After spending the past three years with North Carolina, Love has decided to enter the transfer portal. The St Louis, MO native was heavily recruited coming out of high school by Mizzou but ultimately chose to head to the ACC. Now Missouri has a second chance of landing him, this time under a head coach that might better fit his style of play.

The biggest potential impact that Love would have is on scoring for Missouri. Love has proven that he has what it takes to be a dominant scorer on the highest levels of college basketball, increasing his points per game each year. This past year he averaged just under 17 ppg. Having that kind of scoring threat would be huge in replacing Hodge’s points from this past season. A large portion of Mizzou’s offense the past year came off catch-and-shoot jump shots and shots in transition, both of which should suit a player like Caleb Love.

Love would also have a huge impact for the Tigers as a secondary ball handler and creator. With Nick Honor and Sean East II set to return, Love would not be the primary ball handler, freeing him up to focus on getting open and making shots. Love is no stranger to getting up shots during a game, taking over 500 shots this past season, and of those, a little over half of them were from three. One area of his game that did regress this past season what his three-point shooting, going from 36% last season to under 30% this season. Under Dennis Gates, Kobe Brown had the best three-point shooting season of his career and I think he would have the same impact on Love.

Overall, if Missouri can land Caleb Love, I think that all of the positives would outweigh any negatives. Love would fit right in, bringing size to the guard position and the ability to score relatively constantly. His scoring production would be huge in replacing already departed players and would provide some insurance on the chance that Mizzou might lose any other players to either the NBA Draft or transfer portal. Now all that is left to do is wait.