Why Louisville women's basketball's Hailey Van Lith wants to work with Donovan Mitchell

CHARLOTTE — Hailey Van Lith has some hardware.

Just last season, the Louisville women’s basketball guard won Most Outstanding Player at the NCAA Tournament Wichita Regional and was named first-team All-ACC. In high school she won four gold medals with USA Basketball.

Van Lith can’t display her direct messages from former Louisville men’s guard Donovan Mitchell on a shelf or wear them around her neck, but they have their own significance.

Leading up to last season’s Final Four, Mitchell — then a Utah Jazz, now a Cleveland Cavalier — reached out online to tell Van Lith how much he respected her leadership and to offer his own advice in that area.

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“I took it to heart. I was like, ‘I love it,’” Van Lith said Tuesday at ACC Tipoff, the league’s two-day preseason media event in Charlotte. “I showed my dad. It was the best 10 minutes of my life.”

Van Lith and Mitchell have more in common than their college choices.

When Van Lith signed with Adidas in the summer, Mitchell — who reps the brand and has taken an interest in helping guide college athletes through new rules that allow them to profit off their name, image and likeness— reached out again.

Mitchell watched the U of L women every chance he got during last season’s run to the Final Four, telling The Courier Journal then the Cards “are on one string,” a team totally in sync on the court.

He credited Van Lith for much of that.

“As the leader of my team, being able to see her taking on that characteristic is dope to see,” Mitchell said in March. “Everybody talks about (Van Lith’s) 20 points per game, but the thing I told her was, ‘Your leadership is what I think is most outstanding.’”

Given the Adidas partnership, Van Lith said, she’d like to work with Mitchell in the future. Part of the appeal is his game. She’s a fan of watching him play.

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But the Cards current star also respects Mitchell’s love for the women’s game.

“I feel like he supports us a lot,” she said. “And it's genuine support. I've met a lot of people in his circle. I've met him, and like I feel like it's genuine excitement for us. Because there's that front sometimes where it's like, 'I need to show that I support women's basketball.' But (for) him it's very passionate and very genuine.”

Van Lith said she and Mitchell have “very similar” on-court personalities, which she described as “the dog mentality.” An Adidas collaboration “would be great,’ she said.

“I think values-wise, him and me, we get along very well,” Van Lith said. “I love Donovan. You can tell him I said that.”

Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brett Dawson at mdawson@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter at @BDawsonWrites.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Hailey Van Lith wants to work with former Cardinal Donovan Mitchell