Indiana Basketball: How Anthony Leal’s decision impacts Caleb Love

Indiana basketball secured another commitment for the 2020 class on Friday, but still involved with other top targets, how does Leal impact Caleb Love?

Archie Miller used patience throughout the summer recruiting cycle and all of it paid off when the Indiana basketball program received two commitments from 2020 targets in the span of a month.

After Anthony Leal joined Trey Galloway on Friday as the second IU commit, all of the coaching staff’s attention has shifted to out of state targets. Matt Cross remains high on Indiana’s list, but still has another official visit to Texas A&M before settling down and making a decision. Another target that the Hoosiers are actively pursuing is one of the biggest risers of the class in Jordan Geronimo, who has an official visit scheduled for later this month. Outside of those two, Caleb Love is one name that Indiana fans are well aware of.

Love is a five-star point guard who included Indiana in his top-6 a couple of weeks ago, but just how real is the Love to Indiana talk?

Love has been very open about IU’s message to him, but isn’t totally sold.

"“They want for me to come in and turn that program around. They have been in a drought lately so they want for me to come in and lead their team to a championship and they said that they would put the ball in my hands. Only thing with them, they are going to try and get pieces around me and we will go from there.”"

The last sentence says it all. Indiana needs more pieces around him in order to strongly consider the Hoosiers. Well, IU just received a top-100 commitment last week, so how will that impact Love?

While Leal and Love are entirely different players, his addition to Indiana’s roster could ultimately have sealed it for Love. Yes, getting a commitment from another talented player should help, considering Love wanted more talent around him, but I’m not sure if another backcourt player was what Love was thinking of. I feel like Love would be more inclined to play with talented front court players and hybrid forwards, rather than a crowded backcourt.

Indiana now has Rob Phinisee, Al Durham, Armaan Franklin, Trey Galloway, and Anthony Leal all slated to be in the backcourt rotation in 2020-21, and adding Love to that mix seems rather unlikely, especially since the staff has put a priority on Khristian Lander in 2021.

My gut tells me Love will end up at North Carolina since they will have playmakers around the ball, but also have an opening in the backcourt with two seniors as well as Cole Anthony’s assumed departure to the NBA.

Despite this, I think missing out on Love and securing two commitments from hybrid forwards in possibly Cross and Geronimo would better suit them for next year as well as landing Lander in 2021.