Louisville women's star Hailey Van Lith enters NCAA Transfer Portal

One of the best women’s college hoops players in the country just made a shocking decision. According to On3’s Jamie Shaw, lefty Louisville star Hailey Van Lith has entered the Transfer Portal.

As a true junior in 2022-23, Van Lith averaged 19.7 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.2 assists while earning All-ACC honors for the second straight season. She’s also led the team in scoring each of the last two seasons, although the Cardinals took a step back in 2023 compared to 2022 but still made the Elite 8 before falling to Caitlin Clark and Iowa.

With up to two years of eligibility left, Hailey Van Lith (or “HVL”) becomes perhaps the top name in the women’s Transfer Portal. If not the best, she’s surely one the most fun to watch. An electric southpaw point guard who can flat out score at the college level. Just a massive pickup for whoever is able to land her in the portal.

She’s also one of the most popular athletes in college athletics, with an On3 NIL valuation of $511,000. RT. That ranks 96th in On3’s NIL 100 and she’s the seventh highest women’s college basketball player.

On3’s Pete Nakos had the following to say on Van Lith’s brand and her lofty NIL valuations:

“Hailey Van Lith has established herself as a star in NIL over the last 21 months. She’s carefully crafted her brand, with her most noteworthy deals so far easily being adidas and Dick’s Sporting Goods. It will be interesting to watch if her partnership with the sportswear brand makes any impact on where she decides to transfer. Louisville was an adidas school.”

Transfer portal background information

The NCAA Transfer Portal, which covers every NCAA sport at the Division I, II and III levels, is a private database with names of student-athletes who wish to transfer. It is not accessible to the public.

The process of entering the portal is done through a school’s compliance office. Once a player provides written notification of an intent to transfer, the office enters the player’s name in the database and everything is off and running. The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player’s request and that request cannot be refused.

Once a player’s name shows up in the portal, other schools can contact the player. Players can change their minds at any point and withdraw from the portal. However, once a player enters the portal, the current scholarship no longer has to be honored. In other words, if a player enters the portal but decides to stay, the school is not obligated to provide a scholarship anymore.

The database is a normal database, sortable by a variety of topics, including (of course) sport and name. A player’s individual entry includes basic details such as contact info, whether the player was on scholarship and whether the player is transferring as a graduate student.

A player can ask that a “do not contact” tag be placed on the report. In those instances, the players don’t want to be contacted by schools unless they’ve initiated the communication.

The portal has been around since Oct. 15, 2018 and the new calendar cycle within the portal begins each August. For example, the 2021-22 cycle started Aug. 1. During the 2020-21 cycle, 2,626 FBS football players entered the transfer portal (including walk-ons). That comes after 1,681 entered during the 2019-20 cycle and 1,709 during the abbreviated 2018-19 cycle. In comparison, 1,833 Division I basketball players entered the portal during the 2020-21 cycle after totals of 1,020 in 2019-20 and 1,063 in 2018-19.