Wow is Kevin Love going to be good at UCLA

[Russ Smith]

saturday FSN Pacific televised some of the NIKE extravaganza HS tournament. Love's Lake Oswego team took on Mater Dei which is a Southern California powerhouse. Lake Oswego basically starts one kid over about 6'2", Love, who's 6'9". Mater Dei has Alex Jacobson(going to UA) a 7 footer, the Wear Twins(sops both about 6'10" recruited by everyone in the Pac 10), Andy Brown(6'8" soph recruited by many Pac 10 schools). They even have another 7 footer on the bench. They start 6'7" Taylor King at SG, he's the kid that verballed to UCLA in 8th grade, changed his mind and will be a freshman at Duke.

Kevin Love came into the game sick, supposedly had a 103 temperature. At one point in the 2nd half the score was Mater Dei 38, Kevin Love 36. Love had I think 39 points, 16 boards and 4 blocks, plus numerous amazing outlet passes. He's just so fundamentally sound it's like watching a 10 year NBA veteran playing against highschool kids. They were tripling him everytime the ball went inside, and with lots of size, and he just kept scoring. The other day he had a game where he went 18-18 from the FT line.

Man I can't wait to see this kid at UCLA next year. They tried to get him to graduate early and play this year but he wanted to enjoy his senior year and who can fault him, if UCLA had him now we'd be the best team in the country for sure.

 

[bko32]

Can't agree with you more, Russ. I tivo'ed the game and watched it again on Sunday night. I had really high expectations for Love and he exceeded my expectations. The kid is unbelievably skilled. Left-handed jump hook, right-handed jump hook, drop steps, step-throughs on double teams, jumpers out to the 3pt line, great footwork, etc. I've never seen a high-school big man as fundamentally sound as Love. His outlet passing is superb. He had one outlet pass where he jumped in the air, grabbed the rebound and threw it to half-court before his feet came down!!! I agree that if he was at UCLA now, they'd easily be the #1 team in the country. I can't wait for next year.

 

[Russ Smith]

Can't agree with you more, Russ. I tivo'ed the game and watched it again on Sunday night. I had really high expectations for Love and he exceeded my expectations. The kid is unbelievably skilled. Left-handed jump hook, right-handed jump hook, drop steps, step-throughs on double teams, jumpers out to the 3pt line, great footwork, etc. I've never seen a high-school big man as fundamentally sound as Love. His outlet passing is superb. He had one outlet pass where he jumped in the air, grabbed the rebound and threw it to half-court before his feet came down!!! I agree that if he was at UCLA now, they'd easily be the #1 team in the country. I can't wait for next year.

Yes that outlet where he passed it before coming down was something you just don't see anymore. MacLean doing the game on tv said exactly that, you just don't see people doing this.

I had some concerns earlier in that every tape I've seen of Love when he's inside he shoots the ball from a very low release point, almost in front of his face. It works when you're much taller than the opponent but I thought in college especially with all the bigmen in the pac 10,he was going to have to adjust. But against a very tall Mater Dei team he had no problems at all he released the ball from a much higher point.

Very impressive kid he's basically the lone D1 kid on his team against a team full of them and they won. I didn't get to see Fairfax lose to Oak HIll but I've seen Chace Stanback before and he's going to be pretty good too. but Love
was just unreal. Not a great athlete but man does he know how to play the game, and he's just relentless inside.

 

[bko32]

Love isn't a great athlete but he was much more fluid and coordinated than I had thought. His footwork is extremely polished for a kid his age. Whoever has been coaching him has done a great job, but Love also seems like a very coachable player and relentlessly hard worker. He seemed real humble and modest during his postgame interview as well. Seems like a great all-around kid.

 

[Russ Smith]

Love isn't a great athlete but he was much more fluid and coordinated than I had thought. His footwork is extremely polished for a kid his age. Whoever has been coaching him has done a great job, but Love also seems like a very coachable player and relentlessly hard worker. He seemed real humble and modest during his postgame interview as well. Seems like a great all-around kid.

His dad is Stan Love ex NBA C and he's been coached by ex NBA C Chris Dudley the last 3 years. His freshman year ex Oregon State All American Steve Johnson was the bigman coach.