After a bit of a rollercoaster of a transfer portal process, former LSU women’s basketball guard Hailey Van Lith will officially make her way to TCU for her final year of eligibility.
Former LSU women’s basketball guard Hailey Van Lith makes final transfer portal decision
It feels like just yesterday that Hailey Van Lith was announcing her initial commitment to coach Kim Mulkey and the Tigers last offseason. At the time, it felt like the program had found their guard of the future and she immediately helped to make the purple and gold favorites to repeat as national champions heading into the 2023-24 women’s college basketball season.
Unfortunately, those expectations didn’t exactly pan out, and instead of making her way to the WNBA as many expected, the former LSU women’s basketball guard is officially headed to her third school in as many years.
While this past season didn’t exactly display it all that well, it wasn’t too long ago that Hailey Van Lith was viewed as one of the most dangerous scorers in the country. Having averaged 19.7 points per game while shooting 41.1 percent as a junior at Louisville, it was widely expected that she could end up being an immediate scoring threat with the purple and gold.
However, a scoring threat wasn’t what coach Kim Mulkey and the Tigers needed, and she was thrust into much more of a point guard role as opposed to her more natural off-ball position. In turn, her stats took a bit of a dip, as she logged just 11.6 points and 3.6 assists per game this past season.
Now, following the most recent loss vs. Iowa in the Elite Eight, the 5-foot-7, Wenatchee, WA, product will make her way to TCU for her final year of eligibility. With the Horned Frogs, she’ll be pairing up with elite 6-foot-7 center Sedona Prince and will likely have much more of an opportunity to be a pure scorer.
As a means of replacing the soon-to-be TCU guard’s 31.3 minutes per game from this past year, the Tigers just landed three transfer commitments from Mjracle Sheppard (Mississippi State), Shayeann Day-Wilson (Miami) and Kailyn Gilbert (Arizona), all of which are capable of logging plenty of time on the court in 2024-25 at either guard position.
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