Louisville's Olivia Cochran takes shot at teammate Hailey Van Lith after transfer

In a shocking bit of news in the women’s college hoops world, star Louisville guard Hailey Van Lith entered the Transfer Portal on Friday morning. 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 been the Cardinals’ go-to player the last couple years and has now made the surprising decision to transfer.

It already seems like there’s some bad blood between Van Lith and one of her former teammates. Fellow rising 2024 senior Olivia Cochran posted the following tweet, which seems to be a direct shot at Van Lith since it came just hours after the news of her transfer.

“I’m big on loyalty y’all don’t have to worry about me leaving! Senior year otw (on the way) grateful for everything that’s coming my way,” Cochran tweeted.

Like Van Lith, Olivia Cochran has been a starter since day one with the Cards and has steadily produced 8-point and 6-rebound averages in each of her three years. She’ll be back for at least one more as a senior leader in 2023-24 and she appears betrayed by her star teammate’s defection. After three years and almost 100 starts alongside each other, it’ll be tough for the two to move on without one another.

However, given Van Lith’s popularity, perhaps NIL opportunities or a return closer to her home on the West Coast ultimately made a transfer appealing. On3 currently gives her an NIL valuation of $511,000, which is good for 96th in the NIL 100 and No. 7 among women’s college basketball players.

How’d she become such a popular athlete? Allow On3’s Pete Nakos to explain:

“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.”

Per Nakos, keep an eye on those brands and NIL possibilities for Van Lith. She’s one of the rare athletes (among the thousands of total NCAA athletes) that has substantial money to make in NIL opportunities. So of course she’ll explore that factor when making a decision on a new home.