Caleb Love takes high road after BJ Freeman’s headbutt leads to ejection in win over ASU

After he was ejected for an altercation in which he was headbutted by ASU’s BJ Freeman late in an 81-72 win, Arizona’s Caleb Love took the high road postgame. 

“It was just two competitors going at it and escalated and the refs made a call,” Love said.

Love said that coach Tommy Lloyd wanted them to be classy after the game and that there would be chirpiness when the two teams face off again on March 4 in Tucson.

“We gonna come in and play our best basketball,” Love said. “Chirpiness is part of the game but we gonna compete and all our energy is gonna go to Arizona and my teammates.”

ASU head coach Bobby Hurley had different views on the incident as he implied after the game he would not vote for Love for All-Big 12 conference teams.

“I can tell you who’s not getting a vote (for the all-conference teams). … You can read into that, I’m sure you might know who I’m thinking of right now.”

Tensions remained high as following the ejections, Hurley waved his players off the floor as the game ended. Hurley said after the game that his decision was to avoid any further escalation between the two teams due to words being said by Arizona players.

“If you were right near our bench, it was relentless, constant chatter from a couple of the Arizona players that was not being policed properly. And of course, they’re gonna be happy with winning, but it was done with no class in my opinion,” Hurley said.

 Lloyd said he did not have bad blood toward the Sun Devils following Hurley’s decision.

“Obviously, it’s disappointing, probably on all sides,” Lloyd said. “When tough things happen, we want to be a program that responds with class, and I don’t know if we did or didn’t. But it was a tough moment in an emotional game. I’ve got a lot of respect for Bobby and Arizona State’s players.”