CHAPEL HILL — Maybe the path toward success for North Carolina point guard Caleb Love needs to be visualized to come into focus.
The highly touted freshman has unearthed his most productive game, and perhaps a possible breakthrough in what has been a season beset by struggles, as the Tar Heels prepare for Saturday’s visit from rival North Carolina State in Atlantic Coast Conference basketball.
And along with seeking extra shooting work on his own and tapping into additional advice from coaches and teammates, meditation has become a tool Love has taken up recently in an effort to reconstruct his confidence and improve his underperforming play.
“That just keeps me sane, keeps my head on straight,” he said, after delivering a season-best 20 points in North Carolina’s defeat of Wake Forest on Wednesday night. “Being in that slump builds a lot of stress. So just calming my mind and just doing that, it helps me a lot.”
Even in the empty arenas of the coronavirus pandemic, managing the noise of expectations can pose a considerable challenge, particularly for a freshman with Love’s celebrated credentials in recruiting.
Plagued by turnover problems and poor shooting, Love, the five-star prospect and top-rated recruit among North Carolina’s six-player freshman class, has been cast by some observers as a chief reason why the Tar Heels (9-5 overall, 4-3 ACC) have yet to harness their potential this season.
So at the suggestion of his mother, Love downloaded the Calm app a couple of weeks ago — the app is promoted as a sleep enhancer and anxiety reducer through meditation and relaxation techniques — and he began meditating twice a day, in the morning and then again at night.
“Focusing in by zoning out,” he said, “just soothing my mind. And then also it’s a practice that I’ve been doing, just visualizing what I’m going to do in the next game. It’s like muscle memory, so it’s like shooting free throws. You continue to shoot free throws, continue to knock them down, you’re going to do it in a game.”
Love went 7-for-12 from the field, including 2-for-3 from 3-point range, Wednesday night against Wake Forest, his first time shooting better than 45 percent in a game this season. He added contributions across the board with four rebounds, three assists, two steals and two blocked shots.
North Carolina coach Roy Williams regularly has said the freshman guard’s effectiveness has been too dependent on whether he’s connecting on shots and scoring, thus making for recurring issues and a vicious cycle of inefficiency.
Love entered Wednesday night shooting just 27.9 percent from the field, worst on North Carolina’s team among the 12 players who have made at least one basket this season.
Before hitting three 3-pointers and scoring 11 points last weekend at Florida State, Love languished through a six-game stretch of 15-for-64 shooting from the field (23.4 percent), including 5-for-25 from 3-point range (20 percent).
North Carolina swingman Leaky Black said constant encouragement has been his approach in trying to help pull Love out of the funk, another nod to the mental aspects that Love said he’s striving to refine.
“Just feeding him confidence,” Black said. “If you watch the game closely, you see me after every play he does, good or bad, feed him ‘next play.’ Because I see the repetition he gets in practice. He’s a hell of a player, man, he really can play. It’s just trying to get him to translate it to the game. Once he starts doing that on a consistent basis, he’s really going to surprise some people.”
TIP-OFF
Who: N.C. State (6-4, 2-3) at North Carolina (9-5, 4-3)
When: 2 p.m. Saturday (ESPN)
Where: Smith Center, Chapel Hill
Series: North Carolina leads 160-79 after N.C. State won 79-76 on Dec. 22 in Raleigh. The Tar Heels have claimed 32 of the last 37 meetings between the rivals, and Roy Williams is 32-5 against the Wolfpack during his time as North Carolina’s coach.
Tip-in: N.C. State hasn’t played since Jan. 13 due to a positive coronavirus test, subsequent quarantining and contact tracing within its program. Scheduled games against Georgia Tech and Virginia have been postponed during the Wolfpack’s pause.
This article originally appeared on Times-News: UNC freshman Caleb Love takes up meditation to soothe struggles, bring success into focus
