Arizona’s Caleb Love ‘keeps the main thing the main thing’ ahead of NCAA Tournament

If you blink you may falter. Those are the rules in March.

Whoever you are, whatever seed you hold, if for even one fraction of a second you take your eyes off of the ball, so to speak, you can be sent home with nothing to show for your work.

This is the mindset and disposition of Arizona’s Caleb Love which pains me deeply as an Arizona State Sun Devil. I was fortunate to catch up with Caleb this past week, before the Big 12 tournament started for full context, and asked him how he is able to balance everything that is on the line at this time of year.

“You’ve just gotta keep the main thing the main thing. And that’s winning. You gotta go one for one. In the March Madness case that’s six games, six straight games. In Big 12 tournament that’s three games for us because we’ve got a double bye. You’ve gotta go one for one each and every game.”

“Each and every game is going to be different. It’s going to come with a different game plan, different scheme. Just knowing that, game to game, you’re going to have to adjust. You’ve just gotta focus on the task at hand and execute as best as you can.”

The road to San Antonio won’t be easy for the Wildcats, but as conference tournaments kicked off they held the third-best odds to win the NCAA Tournament according to our friends at FanDuel. Only Houston and Texas Tech were higher, for what it’s worth.

Arizona is one of college basketball’s premier programs and Caleb Love is one of the best players in the country. They are a potentially lethal team to watch as all of the madness gets set to unfold, particularly with a disciplined mindset like the one he detailed.

Caleb joined me on behalf of his partnership with Mondelez to help fans win a chance to the 2026 NCAA® Men’s or Women’s Final Four® plus a bucket load of other prizes.  Oregon’s Jackson Shelstad and USC’s JuJu Watkins will appear in a commercial about it all that will air starting Thursday, March 13th. Would-be players looking to win prizes can visit the Win Time Outz microsite daily to earn sweepstakes entries, and test their skills to earn chances to in one of hundreds of offers – including a trip to the 2026 NCAA Final Four. Caleb can be seen promoting it all on social media soon enough.

Near the end of the interview I asked Caleb if he remembered his stat line against ASU and he did so perfectly: 21 points, 5 boards and 5 assists. It pained me greatly.

Our thanks to Caleb and Mondelez for the time.