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Hailey Van Lith has become a household name in women’s college basketball, but now she’s making waves beyond the hardwood.
The 2025 Big 12 Player of the Year has just been unveiled as the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Digital Cover Star for April. The move highlights Van Lith‘s increasing influence both on and off the court.
Known for her relentless competitiveness and polished skill set, Van Lith has been building her profile since her early days in Cashmere, Washington.
A 2020 McDonald’s All-American and Washington Miss Basketball, Van Lith was mentored by the late Kobe Bryant, who admired her tenacity and work ethic. Those traits have carried her through a historic NCAA career and now into the modeling world.
Record-setting athlete adds modeling to her résumé
Van Lith began her college career at Louisville, where she spent three seasons before transferring to LSU for her senior year, suiting up alongside stars like Angel Reese and Flau’Jae Johnson.
While many anticipated she’d head straight to the WNBA Draft, Van Lith chose instead to return for a fifth season at Texas Christian University. That decision proved monumental.
In her lone year with TCU, Van Lith set the school’s single-season scoring record with 663 points and also established a new single-season assist mark. Under her leadership, the Horned Frogs reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2010.
What truly set her apart was her consistency in big moments. Van Lith became the first player in NCAA history-men’s or women’s-to make it to the Elite Eight five times.
Over the span of her career, she reached that stage with three different programs and made one Final Four appearance.
On top of her collegiate accolades, she also captured a bronze medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics in 3×3 basketball, further cementing her place in American hoops history.
From the hardwood to high fashion
Van Lith‘s entry into SI Swimsuit continues a growing trend of female athletes using their platform to venture into modeling and brand-building. She joins Brittany Mahomes and Olivia Dunne, two other sports figures who have made waves in recent editions of the iconic magazine.
Mahomes, a former soccer pro and co-owner of the Kansas City Current, made her official SI Swimsuit debut in 2024 with a shoot in Belize.
“As a girl from Tyler, Texas, who only really knew sports, never in a million years did I think I’d be in [SI Swimsuit],” she told the magazine. “Be confident in who you are and be unapologetically yourself.”
The issue also features LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne, now in her third collaboration with SI Swimsuit. Dunne, one of the top NIL earners in college athletics, posed on Bermuda’s pink-sand beaches and credited the magazine for opening doors in the modeling world.
“I feel like it just opened a bunch of new doors,” she said, referring to her expanding brand partnerships with names like Vuori, Nautica, and Purina.
This news was originally published on this post .
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