Illinois Basketball: Caleb Love receives scholarship offer from Illini

The Illinois basketball team took a page from the football team’s playbook with their scholarship offer on Wednesday night.

Brad Underwood and the Illini coaching staff extended an offer to Caleb Love. He is a 6-foot-3, 170-pound point guard from Christian Brothers College High School in St. Louis, Missouri. He is rated as a three-star recruit who is the No. 132 player in the class of 2020 and the No. 31 point guard in the nation.

Love’s recruitment is still pretty early, so the Illini coming in with a scholarship now is a good plan. He currently has eight scholarship offers with that number likely increasing over the next year. The offers he already has on the table are pretty impressive as well. He has offers from the likes of Kansas State, Missouri and Xavier, in addition to the Illini.

It is fun to watch Love on the floor. The first thing that jumps out at me about his game is the passion he brings to the court. This kid is not going to be outworked, outhustled or out-hearted. He brings a fire to the game that will carry him a long way.

Love’s defense will also wow coaches and give opposing teams a hard time. Especially in high school and AAU basketball, the defense tends to be very lax. There isn’t a lot of attention paid to this aspect because it seems like players usually just want to show off their skills on the other end of the court. Love throws that stigma out the window. He is a hardnosed defensive guy who can shut down offenses.

In addition to his passion and defensive prowess, Love is a great distributor of the ball and he isn’t a terrible shooter. His game really reminds me a lot of Rajon Rondo. They have very similar styles on the court, and they can win you a game on the defensive end.

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Illinois is clearly going to be a guard-oriented team now and into the future. Getting someone like Love would be huge for this program.