Hailey Van Lith leaves LSU, enters NCAA transfer portal
LSU guard Hailey Van Lith is entering the NCAA transfer portal, according to Pete Nakos of On3, looking for a new location to play her final year of college basketball.
Van Lith transferred to LSU after having consistent success at Louisville, averaging 19.7 points as a junior with the Cardinals before coming to Baton Rouge where she had a completely different role as a point guard on an uber-talented LSU team.
Her scoring dipped to 11.6 points per game, but she averaged a career-high in assists at 3.6 and helped lead the Tigers into the postseason.
“I hope it’s not her last game. But if it is, I’m proud to have been her coach for a year,” Mulkey said. “Hailey Van Lith came to LSU after being an abundant shooter. Shot it a lot at Louisville. Had great success. Was on good teams. 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 [Van Lith’s] stats were very good, but I’m an old point guard, and I see all that.
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“I am 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.”
Van Lith looks to her future with plenty of backing from sponsors and brands wherever she goes next. She’s weighed her options and now looks ahead to the next journey in college. She currently has a partnership with Adidas that has made her one of the companies primary collegiate athletes over the past year.
“You have to kind of look at what type of player you are,” Van Lith said before the NCAA Tournament. “There’s some people that have to capitalize in college because they’re not a pro-type player. They’re likability is going to stay in college. And I think for me, that’s not the case. I’m a pro-type player. The deals will follow, like Angel said. The one downfall is visibility. And the amount of times we play on ESPN and ABC and all these major television channels, that becomes a lot less when you go to the WNBA where it’s at right now. You’re not going to be in the media as much, but from a brand aspect, as long as you do what you need to do and keep up that part of your life, then brands, they’re going to follow you when you go to the league.”
