UPDATE (4/26/24 @ 4:45 p.m. CT): Hailey Van Lith has officially signed with TCU after several days of speculation about the validity of her commitment to the Horned Frogs. Multiple national outlets picked up an AP report with a quote from Van Lith earlier this week, stating that she had yet to sign with any school.
"I haven't made an official commitment, but I'm very close. The ink has not touched the paper for any school."
The report, and subsequent aggregation of Van Lith's quote several days after the original report released on April 19, sent TCU fans and fans of other schools into a frenzy, wondering if she would be the second women's basketball star to renege on a commitment to TCU following Haley Cavinder's flip flop back to Miami days earlier.
Sources confirmed Van Lith's TCU commitment to HornedFrogBlitz in recent days, stating that the confusion stemmed from the differences between a verbal commitment and a signed commitment.
Van Lith will lead a retooled Horned Frogs squad that includes Sedona Prince, Madison Conner and Kentucky transfer Maddie Scherr.
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UPDATE (11:55 a.m. CT): TCU guard Haley Cavinder has announced that she'll return to Miami to play with her twin sister Hanna. The article has been updated below to reflect that.
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Original Article: LSU guard Hailey Van Lith will transfer to TCU, sources have confirmed to HornedFrogBlitz.
Van Lith, one of the top players and biggest names to enter the portal this offseason, spent one year with the Tigers. Van Lith averaged 11.6 points and 3.6 assists per game for LSU as she transitioned from shooting guard to point guard.
With Van Lith, along with WNBA first round draft pick Angel Reese, the Tigers reached the Final Four before falling to Caitlin Clark and Iowa -- a revenge game of sorts after LSU beat Clark and the Hawkeyes in the 2023 national championship.
Van Lith posted the best assist-to-turnover ratio of her career, but her scoring took a dip, down from the 19.7 points per game she averaged the year prior at Louisville. That's not surprising, given the level of talent she was playing with on Kim Mulkey's roster, but Van Lith is arguably at her best when scoring is her first priority.
She showed that while leading the Cardinals all the way to the Final Four in 2022. In 2023, Van Lith's Cardinals fell to Clark and the Hawkeyes in the Elite Eight.
Van Lith led the Cardinals in scoring for two consecutive seasons, and is a career 33.7% shooter from 3-point range.
At TCU, Van Lith joins elite 3-point shooter Madison Conner, not to mention returning center Sedona Prince, as a member of a completely overhauled roster under Mark Campbell.
With a "big three" of Van Lith, Conner and Prince, Campbell's Horned Frogs have a chance to make some significant noise in year two of the new coach's tenure.
TCU still has strides to make in the portal, however, following the departure of five members of the 2022-23 squad in the transfer portal, along with the graduation of several others.
Currently, with Van Lith in the fold, the Frogs' roster looks as follows:
- Madison Conner
- Agnes Emma-Nnopu
- Knisha Godfrey
- Una Jovanovic
- Sedona Prince
- Aaliya Roberson
- DaiJa Turner
- Hailey Van Lith
The Frogs still have seven open spots on their roster to fill, and fans can expect Campbell and his staff to continue building a team that is not only ready to compete, but ready to make a significant push at reaching the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2010.