Three-Point Play: Caleb Love, Cam Hayes, 2022 rankings

Have the chances of one of the schools involved with point guard Caleb Love been too easily dismissed? National Analyst Eric Bossi takes a look at the five-star’s recruitment, discusses Cam Hayes fit in the class of 2020 and more in today’s edition of the Three-Point-Play.

Starting Five: More big-timers closing in on decisions

2020 Rankings: Rivals150 | Team | Position

2021 Rankings: Rivals150

Thanks to a terrific summer that he finished strong at USA Basketball in July, St. Louis (Mo.) CBC point guard Caleb Love proved himself as a legitimate five-star prospect and candidate for the McDonald’s All-American Game.

The 6-foot-3 senior is down to final six of Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Louisville, Missouri and North Carolina. Prior to announcing his list, most figured that Love was bound to leave the St. Louis area and that he wasn’t likely to have any local schools on his list of finalists. So, when Mizzou was included, many speculated it was a “favor” listing while he picked between the real finalists.

Here’s the thing, listing Mizzou is looking to be far more than a favor and based on what I’ve been hearing the last few weeks, Cuonzo Martin and the Tigers are emerging as a very legitimate contender to land Love. Love was in Columbia over the weekend and the early buzz is that Martin and his staff continued to build on the momentum they’ve been gaining.

Now, I’m not ready to proclaim the Tigers a favorite over the two that have seemed to be in the best position for a while – North Carolina and Louisville – but I do think it’s time we stop poo-pooing any thought that Love could stay local and play for his home state program.

Over the weekend, my coworker Corey Evans reported that four-star point guard Cam Hayes will make the move from the class of 2021 to 2020. So, the question is where does he fit in 2020’s national rankings?

Well, I’ve got the answer. The floor general from North Carolina will enter the Rivals150 for the senior class at No. 46 overall.

Now, what to make of his recruitment?

First of all, the programs recruiting him have been expecting this change for a while so nobody should be behind or caught by surprise with the class change. Over the weekend, Hayes was visiting with Kevin Keatts and NC State officially and this weekend he’s scheduled to head to Tennessee. He’s then scheduled to take trips to Louisville and Maryland over the last two weekends of September and others involved at one level or another include Indiana, North Carolina and Texas Tech.

There are visits to come, but the way things stand I see Keatts’ group as the team to beat and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Hayes ends up playing his college ball in Raleigh.

So, we just finished a week of updating the national rankings. Just like it happens every year, it’s our first ranking of the sophomore class that causes the most uproar. Each year in late August or early September I can count on a flood of texts, emails and phone calls about that first top 25 to top 50 ranking of a class. It’s my own private Groundhog Day.

If there is any ranking that shouldn’t be stressful, it is the initial ranking of a class that still has three years of high school basketball left to play. So, I wanted to offer up some advice to anybody who is upset that their very own Johnny Jumpshot or Roger Rebounder wasn’t as high as you hoped for or didn’t make the cut this time around: Take a deep breath, relax and try to put things in perspective.

We are just starting to get familiar with the sophomore class. By the time these guys graduate in the spring of 2022 we will be considering at least 10 times as many players for the rankings and we will have seen them in many more settings. There are a lot of kids who made this ranking that will be distant memories three years from now and there will also be plenty that we’ve not even heard of yet who will be household names come April 2022.

So, if you are ranked, go ahead and enjoy it and use it as a tool to measure where you stand at this point. But, remember it’s just a snapshot in time and only the starting line of what will be a long race. Not ranked? Then use it for motivation if you will. Think you are getting dissed if you must. But, remember there’s still a lot of time left and there will be plenty of opportunity to prove just how good you are.