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During one of his semi-regular bowling outings with teammates KJ Lewis and Jackson Cook on Wednesday, Love twisted one of Lucky Strike Bowl’s orange balls out of his right hand, sending the ball spinning to within an inch of the right gutter, before it redirected to smack the one-pin.

There weren’t 14,688 pairs of eyes following the ball this time. Just a few. Others were averted: A man sitting nearby tapped away at video games on a tablet while a woman dealt out playing cards, though there was a passerby with a little curiosity.

“He’s a basketball player, isn’t he?� one woman said. “Caleb?�

In the background: An unaccompanied plate of nachos and bottle of Bud in an empty nearby booth, clanks of distant bowlers, the Eagles’ “Lyin’ Eyes� playing softly over the loudspeakers.

Love’s ball hit the right side of the one-pin, forcing some decent pin action, but not enough.

The No. 8 and No. 10 pins remained standing in the back row.

“Split?� Love said, lowering and gesturing his hands outward in protest, as if he were protesting an official’s call. “That’s a good bowl!�

More frustration followed. Love aimed to pick up the spare with even more spin, the ball going nearly into the right gutter before spinning back so much that it went left of the 8-pin and plunked into the back, instead of expertly tapping on the 8-pin’s left side so it might have kicked toward the No. 10 pin.

Needle, unthreaded. This time.

The same guy who lunged forward to launch a 60-foot buzzer-beater to send ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ into overtime and to an eventual win over Iowa State on Monday, finished with a middling 131 score.

Because they are all competitors, of course, the scores mattered. After one strike, Lewis proclaimed himself “best bowler on the team,� and on another he strolled back past Love into the seating area without a word, simply crossing his arms and clenching his fists to signal an “X.�

Cook had seen far worse.

“It gets heated sometimes,� he said. “We don’t play about our bowling. We’re very serious.�

Yet the numbers posted on the scoreboard above their lane, next to “K,� “C Love,� and “J Cook,� were also very much secondary in a big-picture sense.

That’s true even for Love.

“It’s just to get away from basketball a little bit,� Love said. “It’s soothing to see yourself get a strike and the better you get it, the more you want to keep rising your scores. I just kind of fell in love with it.�

It’s been almost a lifelong thing for Love, who said he bowled as a kid for fun and occasionally did so during his three seasons at North Carolina but became more serious after ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ held a team bowling event last season.

That sparked Love, just as it did for Cook, who grew up in Oxford, England, sometimes bowling with his father.

“It was just something my dad and I did to connect with each other,� Cook said. “C Love, he’s pretty good at bowling, too, so we just kind of started it.�

Their habit came to where, after Love returned from the NBA Draft process and rejoined the Wildcats last summer, the two bowled almost every day. Before long, Lewis joined them regularly, and it soon became clear it wasn’t just about competition.

As it is during practices at McKale Center or the Richard Jefferson Gym, it was also about making each other sharper.

“I used to bowl just straight, and I was decent at it,� Lewis said. “But I’m a competitor and they used to beat me all the time. So one day, I just asked them how they did it, and they both taught me. Ever since then, I’ve been bowling like that.�

Cook confirmed as much.

“He wasn’t very good,� Cook said. “We taught him to spin it and that’s when his game just got elevated.�

Lewis grew quickly into a fearsome competitor. On Wednesday, during one of the much-less frequent visits the Wildcats make during the season, Lewis threw a 190 that blew away Love’s 131 and Cook’s 102

While ascending his learning curve, Lewis found improvement in the bowling alley really wasn’t all that different than it was on the basketball court, even though the ball is held and released in almost opposite ways.

“It’s routine,� Lewis said. “Bowling is kind of like shooting your form shot. If you’ve got the same form in the basketball, you’re gonna see consistent results. Same with your bowling — if you bowl the same way, you’re gonna get consistent results.�

Love said the trio all aims to help each other, and some days, there’s another project to work on. Those are the ones when freshman center Emmanuel Stephen shows up, his 7-foot frame lumbering down carefully to place the ball on the floor.

“He bowls real straight, but he bowls slow,� Love said, chuckling. “You’d be surprised. You’d think he’ll chuck it down there but he bowls it real slow.�

It’s a sight. Together, the Wildcat bowlers can “definitely stick out like a sore thumb,� Lucky Strike operations supervisor Bri Bowers said, though most around them don’t make a fuss.

Bowers, for one, indicated she knows a lot more about their bowling shoe sizes than anything they do at McKale.

“A lot of people know who they are, but I didn’t, so I just kind of treated them like anyone else,� she said. “I think they appreciated that. They kind of clung to me.

“They’re really down to earth. Very sweet. Never given me a problem or anything. I feel like a celebrity when they come in because they’re like ‘Bri is here.’�

That’s the way they like it. In the bowling alley, unlike on campus or at many places around town, the Wildcats aren’t the celebrities this time.

So if they hit a 60-footer or a strike — or an airball or a gutter ball — nobody’s going to worry much about it.

“We’ve gotten to know Bri and the other ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ locals and we just have conversations with them,â€� Lewis said. “Nothing crazy. Just good conversations. They treat us like normal people.â€�