LSU hits its stride as Hailey Van Lith elevates her game

Hailey Van Lith had her best game of the season on Sunday afternoon in LSU’s win against Tennessee on the road — but she’s had good games before. The real test was backing it up with another strong showing on Thursday night at Georgia and she did just that.

Van Lith followed up her 26-point outing with another team-high 18 points in the win over the Bulldogs, making it back-to-back games where the senior guard has shown an increased aggression and comfort level on the court. The Tigers have now won seven-straight games with one contest left before the SEC Tournament begins next week in South Carolina.

“When you have success you get more relaxed and more comfortable,” head coach Kim Mulkey said after the win over Georgia. “This isn’t Hailey’s first rodeo. Hailey’s been to a Final Four, she knows how to play this game, she’s just playing a different position. She only had one turnover to four assists and for us as a team to have only nine turnovers, that’s very important. She’s a senior and she’s very confident shooting right now.”

Van Lith has benefitted from handling the ball less in the halfcourt, a major change from the first half of the season where she initiated a majority of the sets and actions Mulkey ran. Now, there’s more flow and a better understanding of where to find Van Lith on the perimeter, allowing her to catch and score.

There are still some question marks with facing extended ball pressure like Auburn played last week, but overall, the steps forward have been significant for Van Lith and it’s led to a more confident LSU squad.

“I don’t ever think it’s fair to ask a player to play more than one position, and yet we are asking her to play a new position then in the middle of the game saying go play that old position, so that does a lot of things,” Mulkey said earlier this week. “Her mindset has to change offensively, but she also has to guard differently than she was if she’s at the point. I’ve been so pleased, because I understand that position and it’s hard. I look at turnovers and getting us into an offense. Defensively, unless you’re shooting a layup, you’re the first one back on defense and when you’ve never played that position, you don’t have to do that. There’s a lot of things thrown at you. People need to understand what’s taking place. She’s starting to get a little smoother and more comfortable and I sure am glad we have her.”

Even when Van Lith is the primary ball-handler, the creation has been more spread out over the past few weeks. Against Tennessee, four different players had three or more assists, against Georgia, three had three or more, and against Texas A&M, six players had two or more.

As a team, LSU is up to No. 2 in the SEC in assists per game and No. 3 in turnover rate, showing vast improvement in taking care of the ball and making the right play on offense. 

The Tigers now have five players averaging 12 or more points in SEC play and are shooting 44.7 percent from the field, second best in the conference. LSU’s offense is hitting its stride at the perfect time heading into the postseason and Van Lith’s growth is at the forefront of that improvement.

“I went into the locker room and I told them ‘isn’t it a beautiful game when everybody shares the basketball?’ and everybody gets to eat,” Mulkey said. “We shared the ball and that got us the lead. We got the ball to the open players and the open players made shots, whether it was Morrow dumping it to Angel, Angel finding Hailey, Mikaylah with an unbelievable baseball pass to Angel, and people enjoy that. Having five players in double figures and making teams figure out – who are you going to guard?”