Women's Fastbreak On SI

Dawn Staley Notes Hailey Van Lith's Louisville Look Before South Carolina vs TCU Game

South Carolina coach Dawn Staley seems impressed with Hailey Van Lith's form before the Gamecocks' game vs. TCU.
Grant Young|
Dec 5, 2024; Columbia, South Carolina, USA; South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Dawn Staley directs her team against the Duke Blue Devils in the first half at Colonial Life Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Blake-Imagn Images
Dec 5, 2024; Columbia, South Carolina, USA; South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Dawn Staley directs her team against the Duke Blue Devils in the first half at Colonial Life Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Blake-Imagn Images | Jeff Blake-Imagn Images

The No. 3 ranked South Carolina Gamecocks women's basketball team is playing a pivotal top 10 matchup against the No. 9 ranked TCU Horned Frogs on Sunday.

Given the question marks that TCU had coming into this season, their 9-0 record to start their 2024-25 campaign has been a big surprise within women's college basketball.

Their success is in large part owed to Hailey Van Lith, who has been playing like one of the country's best guards. She is currently averaging 19.4 points, 6.6 assists, and 5.8 rebounds per game in her first season with the Horned Frogs.

Fans love seeing how Van Lith is rebounding from a tough season spent at LSU, where her points per game dropped to 11.6 from it being 19.7 the year prior at Louisville (where she spent the first three seasons of her NCAA career before transferring to LSU).

And ahead of Sunday's game, Gamecocks Dawn Staley noted that Van Lith is back to looking like her old self.

"We know Hailey, for one. We've played against her when she was at Louisville, played against her when she was at LSU," Staley said, per Matt Dowell. "And she's more like in the Louisville, she's in that mode to where she's called on to do a lot of things for their basketball team.

"So you gotta go back and look at the Louisville scout and see the types of things that we did to have an impact on her, in her ability to get clean looks," Staley continued.

It will be intriguing to see how Staley tries to slow Van Lith down on Sunday.

Published
Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.

Share on XFollow GrvntYoung
Home/News