Six Observations on Hailey Van Lith, UConn, and the NCAA Women’s Sweet 16
Taking stock of the tournament bracket and the players, stories, and X factors that will determine who punches their ticket to the next round
After 48 games over 84 hours, 64 teams have become 16. Hailey Van Lith led TCU to its first Sweet 16, while the other fifth-year point guard with a heart of gold lost her final college basketball game on an exhausted overtime bunny that rimmed out. Leave your sweater on the porch, Georgia. JuJu Watkins’s season-ending injury cast a pall over this NCAA tournament, though, and now the Trojans and the women’s basketball world at large will look to fill the void her absence leaves behind. Maybe Hannah Hidalgo, leading a Notre Dame team that’s rediscovered its dominance, can fill the spotlight. Or Madison Booker, whose Longhorns are poised for a stylistic collision against a Tennessee team whose revolutionary defense we broke down last week. A Tobacco Road clash is on the books, and if the ascendant Duke Blue Devils survive the Tar Heels, they’ll likely face the somewhat vulnerable defending champs in the Elite Eight. UConn looms over the field like the Night King. Here are six observations heading into this weekend in Spokane and Birmingham, where the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight will pare the field down to four.
Kiki Iriafen Can Step Up for USC
The Trojans, heading into the Sweet 16, are staring at a JuJu-sized hole in the wall. Watkins averaged 23.9 points, 3.4 assists, and a combined four steals and blocks per game. She produced 27 percent of USC’s total points this season.
The void she leaves behind can’t be completely filled, but it creates an opportunity for something new. In USC’s second-round win, it came in the form of the hardwood-hitting energy and jubilance of Kiki Iriafen, who hit midrange jumpers, split double-teams in the post, and scored a season-high 36 points. Glistening with sweat and smiling through a difficult, emotional night, she danced and diffused what was a borderline hostile environment in the Galen Center, after Trojan fans (and senior big Rayah Marshall) turned their ire on Mississippi State players.
Watching Iriafen’s performance, I was reminded of a video from USC’s Senior Night presentation that showed her serenading the team (and an entire restaurant in Paris) before their home opener, with a rendition of “Killing Me Softly” by the Fugees. Her magnetic exuberance makes her exactly the kind of leader the Trojans need right now.
“Kiki brings the joy, an effervescence that also translates to her bounce, her game, her effort level and her intensity and that’s really changed our program in a positive way,” coach Lindsay Gottlieb said earlier this season. “You can have stars and contributors with different personalities, and I think it’s more synergistic than opposite. I think we need everybody’s different things. You can’t play a symphony if you’re all playing the same note.”
Transferring to USC from Stanford has been challenging for Iriafen, who has struggled to locate her offense within a system organized around Watkins, coming at a cost to her comfort, usage, and efficiency. Playing alongside a semi-traditional big like Marshall has also been an adjustment. But it has also allowed Iriafen to expand her playmaking ability and find her defensive identity as a 3-to-5 hybrid who can make quick rotations, switch onto the perimeter, move her feet, and blitz opponents on double-teams. It also means she has more in the tank than what she’s been able to produce this season, and a matchup against Kansas State big Ayoka Lee would be the perfect stage to showcase what she’s capable of.
Sarah Strong Is UConn’s X Factor
UConn’s 6-foot-2 freshman wonder is straight out of a Daryl Morey fever dream. Of the 11.5 shot attempts Strong averaged before March Madness, 77 percent came at the rim or beyond the arc, where she shot 74 percent and 36.5 percent, respectively.
But if you’re picturing a hyper-efficient, screen-and-move threat benefiting from the playmaking of Paige Bueckers, you’d only be partially correct. Sure, the likely Freshman of the Year has gotten plenty of easy looks in an easy conference. But it’s everything else—her self-creation, feel, playmaking, and defense—that has inspired Geno Auriemma to sermonize about a future that will defy positional conventions. In UConn’s first-round win, Strong posted the first 20-point, 10-rebound, five-block, five-assist game in this century.
“I can honestly say that she’s probably as impressive as any freshman that we’ve had in a long, long time, with all of the things she’s capable of doing on the court,” said Auriemma earlier this season. “I’m excited, because every day she does something I haven’t seen before, from her. I’m anxious every day to go to practice to see, what’s the next step she can take?”
For the rest of the tournament, though, her size will be a big factor. Oklahoma junior Raegan Beers, a 6-foot-4 mismatch nightmare in the post, awaits in the Sweet 16. The Elite Eight would feature either Iriafen and USC’s deep frontcourt or Kansas State’s Ayoka Lee. In the Final Four, if UConn makes it there, 6-foot-7 Lauren Betts, UCLA’s National Player of the Year candidate, might be waiting.
That’s a lot to ask of a freshman, but Strong has already demonstrated the IQ, patience, and resolve of a player many years her senior. Her position and movement style can give off the illusion of a traditional back-to-the-basket player, but Strong is downright futuristic, and she is more unhurried than slow, blocking 3-point shooters on switches, toggling between force and fluidity in her face-up game, faking out defenders with the threat of her shot, and driving and decelerating to create space for silky post-up bankers. As a playmaker, her strength allows her to watch plays develop under duress, and she can see over the chaos—giving off that rare but undeniable sense that the game just moves slower for her than it does for everyone else.
Her 2.29 assist-to-turnover ratio is second in the nation among forwards, and it’s even more impressive when you consider she’s a freshman with a 25 percent usage rate. It’s no shock that basketball is in her DNA: Strong was born in Madrid, where her dad played professionally. Her mom, Allison Feaster, is a Celtics executive and former Harvard basketball player.
The last time Strong saw the Trojans, she almost single-handedly willed a comeback before missing two potential game-tying free throws and a go-ahead 3-pointer—moments I’m certain will be lingering in her head if the teams meet again in the Elite Eight.
Hailey Van Lith Has Come Full Circle
Van Lith has always radiated a sharp sense of certitude, reflected in her eyes, her game, her words, and—looking back—in every major decision she has made in her topsy-turvy college career.
The clarity was evident when she chose to transfer from Louisville to LSU after trips to the Final Four and Elite Eight made her realize she needed help to get farther. The self-awareness was evident in the "it is what it is" shoulder shrug, immortalized in meme form, reflecting the inevitability of getting cooked by Caitlin Clark and capturing an ignominious end to a career-worst season.
The critiques poured in: She never should have left. She tanked her draft stock. She knew, and just as quickly as she came to Baton Rouge, she left. She studied Mark Campbell’s system at TCU, his history with smaller, creation-heavy guards, and the Horned Frogs roster. “I knew it was realistic,” she told WFAA, “and I wanted to be part of it.”
Van Lith has had a career year. She’s made gritty, clutch plays, expanded her playmaking, shed tears after her first double-double, and virtually become an overnight folk hero. Less than 2,000 people attended her first game with TCU. By the time her final game at Schollmaier Arena rolled around this past weekend—fittingly, in her first matchup against Louisville—a program record 7,494 fans showed up. It’s an ironic, modern parable—this five-month flash in a pan who will leave a permanent mark on a program that owes its success to the ephemera of the transfer portal, which has supposedly sucked the emotion out of the fan-player relationship. TCU, in turn, has left its mark on Van Lith, allowing her to blossom into the kind of leading visionary she always knew she could be.
Her 16-point, 10-assist performance, featuring a series of closeout daggers that helped TCU punch its first Sweet 16 ticket, felt less like revenge and more like a long-awaited catharsis.
Notre Dame, a former ACC rival that Van Lith has played eight times (more than any other team) awaits. Sonia Citron might still have the blood on her jersey. TCU met Notre Dame, then ranked no. 3 by the AP, in the Cayman Islands Classic earlier this season, where Van Lith surgically picked the Irish apart and led the Horned Frogs to just their fourth win against a top-three team in program history.
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The Irish look ascendant, but Van Lith—who averaged 21.1 points per game over her first two NCAA tournaments at Louisville—has never not made it to the Elite Eight in her college career. Something’s going to give.
Notre Dame Is Back on Track
After Notre Dame’s defense fell off a cliff in their last five games before the NCAA tournament, I viewed their second-round matchup against a rising Michigan team as a stress test, and by the end of the first quarter, the Fighting Irish had all but secured their fourth consecutive Sweet 16 berth, holding a high-octane Michigan offense to its lowest scoring total of the season in an end-to-end blowout.
Olivia Miles, who left Notre Dame’s first-round win against Stephen F. Austin with a sprained ankle, was shifty and fearless, attacking switches en route to the rim. Here, the bespectacled playmaking impresario, falling away against a blitzing Michigan defense and a ticking shot clock, zips a pass through traffic for a Liatu King layup.
Her calculated high-wire act, alongside Hannah Hidalgo’s ball pressure, fueled a deadly transition attack that came back to life this past weekend alongside Notre Dame’s defense. On that end, Maddy Westbeld, a likely 2025 WNBA draft pick who has struggled this season after coming back from a foot injury, switched out on perimeter shooters and moved her feet on drives. Sonia Citron and Cassandre Prosper overwhelmed freshman phenom Syla Swords. King, who joined The Ringer WNBA Show last week, flew around the court, impeding Michigan’s movement and finding her teammates in high-low actions, finishing with 18 points, 15 rebounds, three assists, and two steals.
“Something I fell short on in the tournament was getting defensive rebounds,” she said, “because that’s my job. If I don’t do that, we can’t start a break. We want to get easy buckets, and getting easy buckets starts with getting defensive stops.”
In the Sweet 16, the Irish will meet Van Lith and TCU, who run a pro-style spread pick-and-roll offense that will test Miles on defense. But Hidalgo’s ball pressure will make Louisville’s feel JV-level. Six-foot-5 Kate Koval, Notre Dame’s freshman rim protector, and fifth-year senior Liza Karlen, will figure large against 6-foot-7 post Sedona Prince (who, it’s worth noting, faces multiple abuse allegations, per reporting by the Washington Post).
Notre Dame’s title odds are just +1200 on FanDuel, but this team can outmuscle, out-drive, and out-defend anyone in the nation. With five future WNBA players in their starting lineup (four of them potentially departing after this season), they have star power, depth, and playmaking at multiple positions. If they keep firing on all cylinders, coach Niele Ivey’s first Elite Eight berth—and more—could be on the horizon.
Duke Has What It Takes to Challenge South Carolina
Great defenses have built-in contingencies against human error. In the clip below, an unexpecting Blue Devils defender gets leveled by a screen, setting Oregon’s Deja Kelly—a midrange maven picking up steam—free. Kelly reads the first reinforcement (Delaney Thomas, attempting to draw a charge) and dumps the ball off to the big. But Ashlon Jackson reads Kelly, slips an arm into the passing lane and prevents the ball from reaching 6-foot-8 Phillipina Kyei.
This is what it means to defend in rotation, and Duke—the fourth-rated defense in the nation, per HerHoopStats—executes it to near perfection. All game long, an already undersized frontline that was missing 6-foot-2 freshman star Toby Fournier (illness) compressed the paint and dug in to neutralize Kyei, one of the tallest playersin the nation. Guard Reigan Richardson pulled down six rebounds. Six-foot-3 Delaney Thomas made good use of all five of her fouls.
In that way, Kara Lawson’s Blue Devils are a mini-simulacrum of their potential Elite Eight opponent, the South Carolina Gamecocks (if both teams get past their respective Sweet 16 matchups, North Carolina and Maryland). Duke is deep, bringing Oluchi Okananwa—the first reserve in a century to win the ACC Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player—and Fournier, their leading scorer, off the bench. Even with Fournier out last weekend, the Blue Devils were smart and connected, replenishing what they lost in the aggregate. And their versatility allows them to make great adjustments in and between games.
In the last month, Duke has Clockwork Orange’d the game tape and avenged losses to Louisville, NC State, and North Carolina. In the first round, they held Lehigh to a tournament-record low 25 points, forcing 30 turnovers, and allowing only nine made shots. The Blue Devils, one of the youngest teams in the tournament, haven’t lost to the same team twice all season, and they’ve grown since losing to the Gamecocks by 11 in December. In fairness, so have the Gamecocks, but they’re not the freight train they were in years past.
South Carolina’s three losses this season have featured their lowest scoring totals (62, 62, and 58) so defense will be vital, but against a Gamecocks team that will ram the ball down your throat off misses, offense is a vital component of defense. Ashlon Jackson, who scored all 19 of her points in the second half in the Round of 32, and Reigan Richardson, can be streaky. If the Blue Devils, who are 13-1 this season when they make seven or more 3s, can catch fire, they’ll have an outside shot at punching their ticket to their first Final Four appearance of the Kara Lawson era.
Styles Will Collide in NC State vs. LSU
NC State and LSU both enter the Sweet 16 close to the top of their games.
The Lady Tigers, whose heavy hitters wore walking boots on Selection Sunday, look reasonably healthy. Flau’jae Johnson is still toggling between running gingerly and exploding in transition, but Aneesah Morrow—the nation’s leading rebounder—was downright dominant against Florida State, nailing midrange jumpers, harkening back to her time as a point guard with dump-offs to her teammates, and giving the Tigers a plus-nine edge on the boards.
LSU will have the size advantage against a four-guard starting lineup and a frontline rotation that drastically thins out after 6-foot-6 freshman Tilda Trygger. But speaking of those guards, a lineup featuring Saniya Rivers, Aziaha James, Zoe Brooks, and Madison Hayes is lab-designed to put LSU’s frontcourt in dribble-drive rotational hell. The Wolfpack are hot too, coming off a 50 percent shooting performance against Michigan State that set a program record in 3s made.
Despite NC State being a no. 2 seed in the Spokane Regional 1 bracket, and coming off a surprise Final Four run last year, Fanduel gives LSU the 3.5-point edge in this game.
“I love being considered the underdog,” Brooks, who stopped by the Ringer WNBA Show to talk about her partnership with BetterHelp, said. “I feel like we’re just as good as South Carolina, LSU, all those big teams, but nobody gives us the credit we deserve. And that’s fine. I feel like we’ve always been overlooked and the underdogs in the situation.”
The game will likely come down to which team stays organized enough to consistently take advantage of their matchups. LSU is loaded, but their offense is prone to your-turn, my-turn spats. On her podcast, Johnson said that sitting out with shin inflammation issues allowed her to see her team’s needs from a new vantage point. If that includes playmaking, the Tigers could make a deep tournament run. On the other side, five of NC State’s six losses this season came in games when they had twelve or fewer assists. Look for Rivers (11 assists against Michigan State), whose combination of athleticism, size, and intuitive vision makes her one of the most fascinating WNBA prospects in recent memory, to make an impact here.
