ALBANY, N.Y. — Hailey Van Lith remembers exactly where she was for the 2023 national championship game.
A week after Iowa and Caitlin Clark sent her Louisville team home in the Elite Eight, Van Lith set up at her place and flipped on the TV. She was among the 9.9 million who tuned in to watch a battle of superstar talents in LSU’s Angel Reese and Iowa’s Caitlin Clark.
Van Lith watched LSU games prior to that title-winning performance. But that afternoon, one of the feistiest guards in the sport felt drawn to the emotions of that particular game and related to it.