Hailey Van Lith: 'I would rather be known as a winner than a scorer'

Throughout the course of her career, LSU Tigers guard Hailey Van Lith has been one of the key members of the teams that she’s played for. However, during this year’s Women’s NCAA Tournament, she has seen her scoring numbers dip.

In LSU’s most recent game over UCLA, Van Lith had seven points, and the Tigers were able to win. After the game, she explained that being known as a winner is more important to her than being a scorer right now.

“Yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, I’m just trying to make winning plays,” Hailey Van Lith said. “And I think in the fourth quarter I was able to come up with some winning plays for us.”

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“I would rather be known as a winner than a scorer because at the end of the day, if all you’re going to ask me to do is score, that’s something that I can definitely do. Yeah, I think at this point it’s about making winning plays.”

Hailey Van Lith started her college career at Louisville. She played in 101 games, starting all of them, over the course of three seasons there. She also averaged 15.4 points per game.

Since transferring to LSU, Van Lith has played in and started 32 games. Her overall minutes of time played per game at LSU are comparable to her career at Louisville. However, her average points scored per game this season is 11.7 points. On the other hand, she is averaging 1.2 assists per game more this season than she did at Louisville.

Now, Hailey Van Lith and LSU are playing in the Elite Eight, looking to make another Final Four. In their way is an incredibly talented Iowa team, led by Caitlin Clark.

Hailey Van Lith gives powerful comments on LA Times column

Prior to LSU’s game against UCLA, an LA Times column came out that referred to the LSU players as “dirty debutantes” and painted the Tigers as a villain. It was a column that the team took notice of and Hailey Van Lith recently responded to.

“I think there’s a lot of situations that play into it. But I think we do have a lot of black women on this team. We do have a lot of people that are from different areas and, unfortunately, that bias does exist still today. A lot of the people that are making those comments are being racist towards my teammates and I’m in a unique situation where I see it myself. I’ll talk trash and I’ll get a different reaction than if Angel [Reese] talks trash. So, it’s really up to me to, it’s not up to me, but I have a duty to my teammates to have their back,” Van Lith said.

“Obviously, some of the words that were used in that article were very sad and upsetting. I actually didn’t want us to read the article before the game because hearing stuff like that, it’s not right, and that type of description of us isn’t always motivating I think. Calling us, basically, ‘the dirty debutantes,’ like that has nothing to do with sports and that’s not motivating. So, I wish we hadn’t read that because it can crush your soul a little bit that someone would ever say that about us that doesn’t know us. But, again, obviously, in my opinion, I know for a fact that people see us differently because we do have a lot of black women on our team who have an attitude and like to talk trash and people feel a way about it, but at the end of the day I’m rocking with them because they don’t let that change who they are and they stay true to themselves. So, I’ll have their back.”