SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) — Hailey Van Lith is focused on making the USA Basketball 3x3 Olympic team this summer and not worried about where she'll end up at college next year.
Van Lith is currently taking part in a training camp in Springfield, Massachusetts, and will play in a 3x3 tournament early next week at The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
The 22-year-old guard, who played at Louisville and LSU, has experienced success in 3x3 for the U.S. She won a gold medal on the U18 team in 2019 and helped win gold at the FIBA 3x3 World Cup last year. The Paris Games is the second Olympics offering 3x3, after the event debuted in Tokyo in the 2021 Games.
“What I remember most is that every game is so unique,” she said of 3x3 play. “The strategy from game to game is so different. You can't specialize in one thing and make it as a player in 3 on 3. You have to be able to guard every position for at least a couple of seconds.”
Van Lith has a chance to make the Paris Games because two of the four members of the U.S. team must be in America’s top 10 for total points accumulated in FIBA rankings. Van Lith currently qualifies at fifth.
Playing in the training camp with so many WNBA players — Dearica Hamby, Allisha Gray and Rhyne Howard — has helped Van Lith improve her game.
“Playing against them and seeing how I'm able to score and not score shows me what I need to get better at,” Van Lith said. “It's a little taste of the league early.”
As far as where she will play college basketball next year, she says she still hasn't signed anywhere yet. Van Lith decided to play in college one more season instead of entering the WNBA draft.
“I did take a visit to TCU and am very interested in them, but I took visits to other schools and was very interested in them, too,” she told The Associated Press. “I haven't made an official commitment, but I'm very close. The ink has not touched the paper for any school.”
Van Lith said she's really stayed off social media for the most part since LSU lost to Iowa in the Elite Eight this month. She didn't even know that Haley Cavinder had decided to not play at TCU and go back to Miami until Saturday afternoon.
She said Cavinder's choice wouldn't play a role in her decision.
“It's a non-factor for me,” Van Lith said. “If she had stayed and I did go to TCU, I'd have loved to play with her.”
Van Lith averaged 11.6 points and 3.6 assists in her only season at LSU, joining the NCAA defending champions for the 2023-24 season. She has the option for another season because of the extra year granted by the NCAA to athletes whose freshmen season was affected by the pandemic.
She starred at Louisville her first three years, leading the Cardinals to the Final Four in 2022. Louisville lost in the Elite Eight last year before she decided to transfer to LSU. She was one of the biggest names in the portal last season and is again now.
AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25
FILE - LSU guard Hailey Van Lith passes the ball during the first half of a Elite Eight college basketball game against Iowa in the NCAA Tournament, April 1, 2024, in Albany, N.Y. Van Lith is focused on trying to make the USA Basketball 3x3 Olympic team this summer and not worried about where she’ll end up at college next year. Van Lith is taking part in a training camp in Springfield, Mass. this weekend and will play in a tournament early next week at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink, file)
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A delegation of the Palestinian militant group Hamas was in Cairo on Saturday as Egyptian state media reported “noticeable progress” in ongoing cease-fire talks with Israel while an Israeli official downplayed the prospects for a full end to the war.
Pressure has been mounting to reach a deal — Gaza's humanitarian crisis is dramatically escalating while Israel insists it will launch an offensive into Rafah, the territory's southernmost city.
The stakes are high to find a halt to the nearly seven-months-long war. More than 1 million Palestinians are sheltering in the city of Rafah, along the border with Egypt, many having fled northern Gaza where a top U.N. official says there is now a full-blown famine.
Egyptian and American mediators have reported signs of compromise in recent days but chances for a cease-fire deal remain entangled with the key question of whether Israel will accept an end to the war without reaching its stated goal of destroying Hamas.
Egyptian state Al-Qahera news said Saturday that a consensus has been reached over many of the disputed points but did not elaborate. Hamas has called for a complete end to the war and withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza.
The war has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s local health officials, caused widespread destruction and plunged the territory into an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
The conflict erupted on Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked southern Israel, abducting about 250 people and killing around 1,200, mostly civilians. Israel says militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, played down the prospects for a full end to the war. The official said Israel was committed to the Rafah invasion and told The Associated Press that it will not agree in any circumstance to end the war as part of a deal to release hostages.
Israeli strikes early Saturday on Gaza killed at least six people. Three bodies were recovered from the rubble of a building in Rafah and taken to Yousef Al Najjar hospital. A strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza also killed three people, according to hospital officials.
In the last 24 hours, the bodies of 32 people killed by Israeli strikes have been brought to local hospitals, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Saturday. The ministry does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its tallies, but says that women and children make up around two-thirds of those killed.
The Israeli military says it has killed 13,000 militants, without providing evidence to back up the claim.
In related developments this week, Israel briefed Biden administration officials on plans to evacuate civilians ahead of the Rafah operation, according to U.S. officials familiar with the talks.
The United Nations has warned that hundreds of thousands would be “at imminent risk of death” if Israel moves forward into the densely packed city, which is also a critical entry point for humanitarian aid.
The U.S. director of the U.N. World Food Program, Cindy McCain, said Friday that trapped civilians in the north, the most cut-off part of Gaza, have plunged into famine. McCain said a cease-fire and a greatly increased flow of aid through land and sea routes was essential.
Israel recently opened new crossings for aid into northern Gaza, but on Wednesday, Israeli settlers blocked the first convoy before it crossed into the besieged enclave. Once inside Gaza, the convoy was commandeered by Hamas militants, before U.N. officials reclaimed it.
The proposal that Egyptian mediators had put to Hamas sets out a three-stage process that would bring an immediate, six-week cease-fire and partial release of Israeli hostages, and would include some sort of Israeli pullout. The initial stage would last for 40 days.
Hamas would start by releasing female civilian hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Gershon Baskin, director for the Middle East at the International Communities Organization, said it appears that Hamas has agreed to the framework that Egypt proposed and Israel has already accepted.
He said the negotiators are now hammering out the details — and if Israel sends its top negotiators to Cairo after the Sabbath ends on Saturday evening, that would signify it's very serious.
Jeffery reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.
The Chahine family prepares to bury two adults and five boys and girls under the age of 16 after an overnight Israeli strike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, May 3, 2024. An Israeli strike on the city of Rafah on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip killed several people, including children, hospital officials said Friday. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
The Chahine family prepares to bury two adults and five boys and girls under the age of 16 after an overnight Israeli strike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, May 3, 2024. An Israeli strike on the city of Rafah on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip killed several people, including children, hospital officials said Friday. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
Palestinians stand in the ruins of the Chahine family home, after an overnight Israeli strike that killed at least two adults and five boys and girls under the age of 16 in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, May 3, 2024. An Israeli strike on the city of Rafah on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip killed several people, including children, hospital officials said Friday. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
Palestinian medics treat a wounded person as the other one carries a young wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip at the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, early Friday, May 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
Palestinian civil defence members evacuate survivors of the Israeli bombardment on a residential building of Abu Alenan family in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, early Saturday, May 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
Palestinian medics evacuate wounded children in Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip by ambulance to the Hospital in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, early Saturday, May 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
Palestinian civil defence members evacuate survivors of the Israeli bombardment on a residential building of Abu Alenan family in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, early Saturday, May 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
Palestinian civil defence members evacuate survivors of the Israeli bombardment on a residential building of Abu Alenan family in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, early Saturday, May 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
