Angel Reese offers a heartfelt congratulations to former LSU teammate for an amazing accomplishment

Taken as a whole, the basketball community -- men's and women's -- is a relatively small one. Connections and relationships are key, helping to elevate a player's game on the court and their standing off of it, when their career ends.

Angel Reese gets this. The Chicago Sky forward is only a rookie, but she has never forgotten her roots, or the people who helped her get to the WNBA -- including former LSU Tigers teammate Hailey Van Lith, who recently celebrated an enormous achievement.

Reese salutes Hailey Van Lith

The social media-savvy Reese took to X (formerly Twitter) to congratulate Van Lith for making the 3x3 women's basketball team that will take part in the Summer Olympics in Paris next month. Van Lith is part of an exclusive group going to in July, and the news came after the guard had a difficult season under Kim Mulkey at LSU.

Van Lith transferred to LSU from Louisville for the 2023/24 season, but the talented lead guard struggled to find her way in Mulkey's offense. Van Lith's final game for the Tigers was the 94-87 loss to Caitlin Clark's Iowa Hawkeyes in the Elite Eight -- where the illness-stricken Van Lith was Clark's primary defender, helpless to prevent her from scoring 41 points in the rematch of the 2023 national championship game.

Van Lith has since transferred to TCU for her final year of college eligibility, and her standing in college basketball remains solid -- as evidenced by her selection to the 3x3 team. A return to form in 2024/25 could bring her closer to realizing a WNBA dream -- and playing against, or even with, her friend Reese.