Hailey Van Lith has had an incredible year. After a tough season at LSU, Van Lith won a bronze medal with the U.S. Olympic 3x3 women’s basketball team and followed that up with a superb fifth-year season at TCU.
Hailey Van Lith should definitively be a WNBA first-round draft pick
TCU’s tournament run has demonstrated that Hailey Van Lith is ready for the WNBA — and that wherever she goes, winning follows.
Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images
Noa Dalzell is a senior writer covering the WNBA and all of women’s basketball for Breakaway, SB Nation’s women’s sports vertical, as well as the Celtics for CelticsBlog.
Van Lith averaged 17.9 points and 5.5 assists at TCU, leading the university to its first-ever Elite 8 appearance. Her best moment yet came on Saturday, when she led the Horned Frogs to a 71-62 win over Notre Dame with 26 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 assists.
This is Van Lith’s fifth (and final) season in college, and she’ll be eligible to be selected in the WNBA Draft next month. After a down year at LSU, many wondered if the undersized point guard could succeed in the WNBA, and hardly anyone had projected her being picked in the first round.
But thanks to her tremendous tenure at TCU, Van Lith should (and likely will) be selected in the first round of the WNBA Draft.
On the bright stage of the Sweet Sixteen, Van Lith outplayed Notre Dame’s trio of elite guards: Naismith Women’s Player of the Year candidate Hannah Hidalgo and Olivia Miles and Sonia Citron, both of whom are expected to be selected in the lottery.
The two concerns with Van Lith entering the draft are her size (she’s listed at 5’7) and her three-point shooting (she’s 33.8% from three in her collegiate career).
She can’t do anything about her height, but she’s been able to make defensive adjustments and has been much improved on that end of the floor, a reality that was highlighted when she rejected a Hidalgo drive on Saturday.
And, there are plenty of undersized WNBA guards who have excelled, like Kelsey Plum and Arike Ogunbowale, who are both 5’8.
Hailey Van Lith has greatly raised her draft stock throughout March Madness
Last year at this time, few outlets had Hailey Van Lith in the first round of their WNBA 2025 draft boards.
But that has changed. ESPN’s most recent WNBA mock draft has Van Lith going ninth overall and being selected by the Los Angeles Sparks. Yahoo Sports has her being picked 10th and thus going to the Chicago Sky. The Athletic’s pre-March Madness mock draft didn’t have Van Lith in the picture, but their next iteration likely will.
Van Lith will need to continue to work on her three-point shot, but there’s reason to believe she could improve on that front. In her freshman season at Louisville, she shot 38.3% from three, and she’s an elite free throw shooter (83.9% on her career) an indicator that she has the potential to become a better distance shooter down the road. And, when the pressure is highest, she’s hit some huge ones throughout her career, both in the NCAA and in the Olympics.
She’s also vastly improved around the basket and as a midrange shooter — she’s shooting 53.6% from two-point range for TCU, a steep jump from 40% last season.
Everywhere that Hailey Van Lith has gone, winning has followed. She’s the first player in college basketball history who has reached the Elite Eight five times; three times with Lousiville, once with LSU, and now, with TCU.
There’s no reason to think she won’t bring that relentlessly competitive to the pros, too.
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