Hailey Van Lith reportedly makes decision about future at LSU
Hailey Van Lith has entered the transfer portal and is set to leave LSU this offseason, according to multiple reports.
Van Lith spent just 1 season at LSU as the team’s starting point guard. Her season ended last weekend in an Elite Eight loss to Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes.
LSU women’s basketball star guard Hailey Van Lith has entered the transfer portal, @247Sports has learned pic.twitter.com/FUoOZ2Suvl
— Matt Zenitz (@mzenitz) April 4, 2024
Van Lith guard scored 9 points on 10 shots while adding 1 assist and 2 turnovers in LSU’s loss to Iowa. She also drew the primary defensive assignment on Clark, who torched the Tigers to the tune of 41 points en route to an Elite Eight victory.
Van Lith was a much-hyped arrival at LSU via the portal a year ago, but will now evidently seek a new program to play for in 2024-25. Her lone season with the Tigers didn’t go as planned as she saw her scoring average drop from 19.7 points per game to 11.6 points per game. Van Lith went from being a shooting guard at Louisville to trying to learn how to play point guard for LSU.
Van Lith’s efficiency numbers also went down during her time in Baton Rouge. She set new career-lows in field goal percentage, 2-point percentage, true shooting percentage and effective field goal percentage.
After the Iowa game last weekend, head coach Kim Mulkey spoke about the transition and commended Van Lith for “embracing” a new position with the Tigers.
“Hailey Van Lith came to LSU after being an abundant shooter,” Mulkey told reporters. “Shot it a lot at Louisville. Had great success. Was on good teams. But she graduated in three years with a finance degree. She wanted to experience all the things I guess she saw from afar with our championship last year. For her to take that leap of faith and leave her comfort zone at Louisville, you don’t see many players do that when she was that big a piece to their puzzle. She has embraced learning a new position, taking less shots. Our last game against UCLA, I thought her stats were very good, but I’m an old point guard, and I see all that.
“Forever indebted to Haley and her unselfish play to come to LSU to play with a lot of great players and learn a new position.”
Mulkey also said she hoped Van Lith would return to LSU for her final year of eligibility in 2024-25. Instead, Mulkey will now be tasked with finding a replacement point guard either in the transfer portal or from somewhere else on the roster. LSU also lost star forward Angel Reese to the WNBA Draft earlier this week.
Van Lith spent the first 3 seasons of her career at Louisville before deciding to enter the portal.
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…gone like a fart in the wind.
Since do do is brown, the team will find an angle to play the race card on your comments.
She had an up and down year largely due in the position change. Being the pt guard for a roster of talented players meant she had to sacrifice a lot of her offensive abilities to ensure the team effectively got it stars good shots. She largely did that but she had too many turnovers in the biggest games. To her credit she was a gamer.
This year’s team would have been even better with a true pt guard and rotating Hailey in relief of Flauje at shooting guard. LSU has some highly rated pt guards coming in so things should get better.
As for Hailey. If someone is only looking for a shooting guard they will get a very capable player. Best of luck to her.
She may indeed end up in the portal but she hasn’t done it yet.
Van Lith’s struggles this year I think related more to foot problems than anything else. She was diagnosed with Lis Franc and sat out games mid season. This is really painful and affects every move you make on the basketball court. This was evident in how she played flat footed on defense and she didn’t elevate on her shot. Clark ate her alive.
We will see if she sticks at LSU. I think it is her best chance if she really wants to play point
A wise decision to be away from Mulkey’s program.
Yeah who would want to win championships and play for the greatest player/coach in the history of women’s basketball
She is looking for a team that respects America. Not Africa like the current bunch of lesser human types (fill in the blanks) on LSU’s team this year.
Wow, overt and open racism from a Bama fan. I’m shocked!
Just say what you want to. Hint: It begins with “n”.
Our team is rac ist.
Observation of that fact is not.
Go back to kindergarten, do not pass Jr High.
What a POS.
If the truth hurts…