Caleb Love has seen plenty of Duke. And there's the potential for 1 more NCAA meeting

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Caleb Love has seen plenty of Duke. And there's the potential for 1 more NCAA meeting

2025-03-17 10:04 Last Updated At：10:11

Caleb Love has already seen plenty of Duke in a five-year college career, even after transferring across the country from North Carolina to Arizona.

He might not be done, either.

That's because the 68-team field for the NCAA Tournament includes an intriguing second-week Easter egg: a potential reunion — the 10th such meeting — between the top-seeded Blue Devils and the fifth-year guard with the fourth-seeded Wildcats slotted in the same half of the East Region bracket.

“We’ve overcome so much adversity and hardship, I’m just proud we made it this far,” Love said after Arizona fell to Houston in Saturday's Big 12 championship game, a day before the field was unveiled. "We will be ready for the postseason and March Madness.”

Sure, Duke (31-3) and Arizona (22-12) must win twice to reach the Sweet 16 and meet up in Newark, New Jersey. But when it comes to March Madness, part of the spring routine is looking ahead and imagining the wild turns that could loom on the road to the Final Four.

Storylines matter. They're part of the reason the event captivates the nation every year along with the upsets and “One Shining Moment.” And one more Duke-Love reunion, rooted in the angst of the sport's top rivalry, would qualify as a big one.

The 6-foot-4 guard is 5-4 all-time against Duke, which includes two of UNC's biggest wins in series history.

First, Love had 22 points in the Tar Heels' road win that spoiled the final home game of retiring Blue Devils Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski in March 2022. Then, when the improbable happened a month later and the Tar Heels and Blue Devils had their first-ever NCAA meeting, it was Love who hit the monster late 3-pointer and the clinching free throws in the Final Four on a 28-point night as UNC ended Coach K's career.

Those were two of four wins Love had against Duke while at UNC before he transferred to play for Tommy Lloyd at Arizona. That move came just in time for Lloyd and Krzyzewski successor Jon Scheyer to start a home-and-home nonconference series between their programs, giving Love an immediate return to the famously hostile Cameron Indoor Stadium in November 2023.

Love — who went on to be the Pac-12 player of the year and an Associated Press All-American — shook off a rough shooting night and hit clinching free throws in another win. And the past wasn't buried, either; he played that game with the handwritten message “Tar Heel 4L” (for life) on the heel of his shoes.

He finished the night by again getting to emphatically wave good-bye to the heckling-all-night “Cameron Crazies” after his third win in Duke's famed arena.

“It was very satisfying," Love said that night, adding of his farewell message: “I just told them good-bye, you know? It's over with.”

Duke returned the favor by winning at Arizona earlier this year, with Scheyer crediting junior guard Tyrese Proctor for holding Love to a 3-for-13 effort that included going 1 for 9 from 3-point range.

“Love is a big-time player," Scheyer said that night.

And if things fall right, there could be one fun final chapter to come.

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US and Iran-backed Houthis both vow escalation after US airstrikes target rebels in Yemen

2025-03-17 10:02 Last Updated At：10:10

CAIRO (AP) — The United States and Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen are both vowing escalation after the U.S. launched airstrikes to deter the rebels from attacking military and commercial vessels on one of the world's busiest shipping corridors.

The Houthi-run Health Ministry said the U.S. strikes killed at least 53 people, including five women and two children, and wounded almost 100 in the capital of Sanaa and other provinces, including Saada, the rebels’ stronghold on the border with Saudi Arabia.

“We’re not going to have these people controlling which ships can go through and which ones cannot. And so your question is, how long will this go on? It will go on until they no longer have the capability to do that," U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told CBS on Sunday.

President Donald Trump on Saturday vowed to use “overwhelming lethal force” until the Houthis cease their attacks, and warned that Tehran would be held “fully accountable” for their actions.

The Houthis have repeatedly targeted shipping in the Red Sea, sinking two vessels, in what they call acts of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel has been at war with Hamas, another Iranian ally. The attacks stopped when a Israel-Hamas ceasefire took hold in January — a day before Trump took office — but last week the Houthis said they would renew attacks against Israeli vessels after Israel cut off the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza this month.

There have been no Houthi attacks reported since then.

The U.S. airstrikes were one of the most extensive attacks against the Houthis since the war in Gaza began in October 2023.

Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, on Sunday told ABC that the strikes “actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out.” He didn't identify them or give evidence. Rubio said some Houthi facilities had been destroyed.

In a speech aired Sunday night, the rebels’ secretive leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, warned: “We will confront escalation with escalation.”

“We will respond to the American enemy in its raids, in its attacks, with missile strikes, by targeting its aircraft carrier, its warships, its ships,” al-Houthi said. “However, we also still have escalation options. If it continues its aggression, we will move to additional escalation options.”

He did not elaborate. The Houthis have targeted U.S. warships and shot down American drones flying over Yemen.

The rebels on Sunday claimed to have targeted the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group with missiles and a drone.

According to a U.S. official, the Houthis did fire drones and at least one missile in response to the U.S. attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide updated information on operations, said that beginning at about midnight local time in Yemen, the Houthis fired 11 drones and at least one missile over about 12 hours. Ten of the drones were intercepted by U.S. Air Force fighter jets and one was intercepted by a Navy F/A-18 fighter jet. The missile fell into the water far from the ship, and nothing came close to hitting either the carrier or the warships in its strike group.

The spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a statement called for “utmost restraint and a cessation of all military activities,” while warning of the “grave risks” to the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest nation.

Rubio said that over the past 18 months the Houthis had attacked the U.S. Navy “directly” 174 times and targeted commercial shipping 145 times using “guided precision anti-ship weaponry.”

The attacks sparked the most serious combat the U.S. Navy had seen since World War II.

On Sunday, the head of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Hossein Salami, denied his country was involved in the Houthis' attacks, saying it “plays no role in setting the national or operational policies” of the militant groups it is allied with across the region, according to state-run TV.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, writing on X, urged the U.S. to halt its airstrikes and said Washington cannot dictate Iran's foreign policy.

The U.S. and others have long accused Iran of providing military aid to the rebels. The U.S. Navy has seized Iranian-made missile parts and other weaponry it said was bound for the Houthis.

The United States, Israel and Britain previously hit Houthi-held areas in Yemen, but the new operation was conducted solely by the U.S. It was the first strike on the Houthis under the second Trump administration.

The USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group, which includes the carrier, three Navy destroyers and one cruiser, is in the Red Sea and was part of the mission. The USS Georgia cruise missile submarine has also been operating in the region.

Associated Press writers Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, and Tara Copp and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war