Hailey Van Lith consoled by head coach following Elite Eight loss vs. Texas
The long and successful career of Hailey Van Lith came to an end Monday night. While TCU had hopes of advancing to the Final Four, Texas will be the ones heading to Tampa. Van Lith will exit the college game after five seasons and three different teams.
Understandably, emotions were high after the game. People on the Texas side were jubilant while the mood was a little more somber for TCU. Van Lith was no different, taking in the final moments of her time with the Horned Frogs.
She even shared a moment with head coach Mark Campbell after the final buzzer. The two had a long embrace, with some words coming from Campbell to his star player. The ESPN microphones pick up him saying “I’m proud of you” to Van Lith before walking off the court together.
Van Lith did not have her best day against Texas. Despite being TCU’s leading scorer with 17 points — only trailing Madison Booker in the game with 18 — Van Lith was three of 15 from the field. Ten of her 17 points came from the free throw line. Seven turnovers pop up on the stat sheet too, as Texas forced 21 in total.
Certainly not the way Van Lith wanted to go out. But a nice moment was shared with Campbell after having him as her head coach for just one season.
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More on Hailey Van Lith, successful NCAA Tournament career
Not many players have produced in the NCAA Tournament like Van Lith. While there is no national championship on the resume, all five seasons resulted in at least an Elite Eight appearance. She did go to the Final Four once with Louisville.
Van Lith was labeled “Miss March” earlier in the tournament because of her success. Similar to Michigan State‘s Tom Izzo dawning the nickname “Mr. March.”
“The Miss March (moniker) is deserved and earned,” Campbell said. “In this era of the portal and the modern-day college athlete, and there are a lot of bad stories in the portal, but Hailey Van Lith leading three schools five times to the Elite Eight, Miss March, yes, she gets that title and she can own it.”
Including Tuesday’s performance, Van Lith averaged 18.3 points per game during this year’s run with TCU. She may have only been with the program for one season but Campbell and everyone in Fort Worth are going to miss watching Van Lith on a nightly basis.