It will be a Horned Frog, Hailey Van Lith.
The point guard, who played this past season at LSU after starting her college career at Louisville, is moving to TCU, as first reported by Talia Goodman of Next Hoops.
With LSU this past season, Van Lith averaged 11.6 points and 3.6 assists per game.
Because she played for a team with fewer scoring talent and hence more shot attempts, she didn’t score as much as she did at Lousville the previous season, where she averaged 15.4 points a game.
Van Lith joins Miami’s team just as Haley Cavinder departs TCU to reunite with her sister Hanna. Haley had initially announced her commitment to TCU for the 2024-25 basketball season after taking a year off from the sport.
However, earlier this week, Hanna Cavinder made a surprising announcement, revealing her decision to return to Miami despite previously indicating she was done with basketball.
Van Lith’s departure from LSU follows a disappointing performance in the Elite Eight, where LSU faced Iowa in a rematch of the previous season’s national championship game. Van Lith struggled to contain Caitlin Clark, who scored 41 points, including nine three-pointers, leading to LSU’s defeat.
During a team dinner over the weekend, LSU head coach Kim Mulkey spoke about Van Lith’s choice to use the transfer portal.
According to Nola.com, Mulkey stated, “Her goals were to be drafted this year, but she realized, ‘I need another year and I need to go back to a place where I can relax and get back to my normal position.'” “What do you do, then? With an embrace, you send her best wishes.
She knew that at the next level, it’s her only opportunity to be able to convince them, in a vague way, that “I can handle the ball if you need me to,” so she came to LSU with the intention of strengthening her strengths by mastering a position that I played for my entire life.
“One of the hardest working players that I’ve ever coached,” according to Mulkey, is Van Lith.
Given that Van Lith played for Mississippi State’s head coach Sam Purcell while at Louisville, there had been some speculation that she would end up there.