The senior has become the epitome of an NIL superstar, but her decision to play a fourth year for the program she helped build shows she’s actually pretty old-school, too.
Flau’jae Johnson thought about leaving college early for the WNBA. In a league where most domestic players spend four years in college, her relatively early birthday would have allowed her to enter the draft after three seasons instead, a decision that she faced last spring.
She weighed her options. But she did not weigh them very long before deciding to return for her senior year at LSU. The decision was partially financial. Johnson figured there was zero upside to going pro when she had considerable NIL income at LSU and the WNBA was in the middle of negotiating a transformative collective bargaining agreement: “Why go, when I could make a lot of money in college, and just wait for them to figure it out?”Johnson wanted to spend one more year in the program that she helped build, and she wanted to finish her college basketball career as a four-year, one-institution player. If LSU’s turnaround under Kim Mulkey is often highlighted by the transfers that she brought in—Angel Reese and Alexis Morris—then Johnson has a special place as the first major recruit to sign on in high school and the only such player to stay all four years. “She took a chance on LSU before this staff ever won,” Mulkey said. “As a coach, man, you hope you can just coach those kinds of kids.” And so Johnson wanted to stick with that staff as long as she could. In some ways, Johnson is the ultimate modern player, someone who has leveraged her options to build a massive NIL portfolio. No women’s college player has a larger following on social media. A rapper, she has continued to build the music career that she began in high school, and she is signed to a deal with Roc Nation. Yet she is also fundamentally a bit old-school. When Johnson made her college decision four years ago, she committed to LSU, and she wanted to stay truly committed for all four years. The guard knows that each game from here might be her last. It picks up with No. 2 LSU facing No. 3 Duke in the Sweet 16 on Friday. That will cap a season that has tested her and forced her to grow in place before she heads for the draft. She has put together a season that has been somewhat uneven. A stat sheet will show that Johnson has logged fewer minutes this year than she did in any previous season. She has not taken as many shots as she did last year. She has scored less than in any season since her freshman year. At times, certainly, the story has been more or less what those numbers suggest. Take when Johnson was held scoreless against Vanderbilt in January, for instance, or when she went quiet But there is some more nuance here. At her best, Johnson has continued to show that she is both a high-level scorer and a very capable defender when engaged. She remains a. And that has come as she has shifted her role this season. LSU’s backcourt is more robust than it has been in recent years. ZaKiyah Johnson has capably stepped into the starting lineup as a freshman, Jada Richard has come into her own as a sophomore, and Mikaylah Williams and MiLaysia Fulwiley remain key pieces here as upperclassmen. Johnson knew that would potentially mean a smaller role for her. The senior volunteered for that. “She said it from Day 1,” says former LSU assistant Gary Redus II, who left the team earlier in March to become head coach at Rutgers. “In our first team meeting, once the team was together, she was O.K. with sacrificing, and she said she knew if she sacrificed, everyone else would be O.K. with also sacrificing.” Johnson has seen playing with that group as a chance to learn. She has always fancied herself a bit of a collage artist: She plots out her future using vision boards, and she loves incorporating a good sample in her, too. She does not mind that her teammates are younger. Johnson has challenged herself to adapt the best parts of their games as her own. “She took a chance on LSU before this staff ever won,” Mulkey said. “As a coach, man, you hope you can just coach those kinds of kids.” | SCOTT CLAUSE / USATODAY Network / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images “It’s just been fun, playing with fast, dynamic guards. Anything can happen,” Johnson said. “It just made me want to up my game—like, my all-around game. It’s just so much to learn from. I’m that type of person. Anybody’s game where I feel like,But that dynamic goes both ways. As Johnson is learning from her teammates, she knows they are learning from her, too. “It’s patience,” Redus says. “I think it’s being patient, not just with her game, but with herself. A lot of times, you’ll see her try to get it all at once, or try to make a million-dollar move, a million-dollar play. Every single time I think you’ve seen her do that this year, then she’ll play a little bit more calm… She understands that there are younger ones watching her, and she has to show them the way.” As long as she has been around the program, Johnson has been known for her easygoing, sunshiney personality. “She lights up the room whenever she walks in,” says reserve guard Izzy Besselman, the other four-year senior on this roster. “She just carries herself in such a great way.” Johnson has always made herself a welcome face to new players and a reliable source of comic relief for everyone else. But she had not always necessarily been a leader. And in returning for her senior year, stepping into this slightly altered role, that has changed. “She never really wanted to embrace being a leader,” Mulkey said. “She just kind of wants to do good and be a good player and a good person… Sometimes, you have to be a leader, and I think she’s embraced it this year.” Johnson is the only active player on this roster who played for the national championship in 2023. The resulting perspective can make her seem ancient to her younger teammates. “I sound like a grandma when I say it,” Johnson groaned before the start of the NCAA tournament. “But, really, enjoy it, because it’s going to go by so fast.” She would know. And she is glad that she stayed in one place long enough to fully appreciate it.Emma Baccellieri is a staff writer who focuses on baseball and women's sports for Sports Illustrated. She previously wrote for Baseball Prospectus and Deadspin, and has appeared on BBC News, PBS NewsHour and MLB Network. Baccellieri has been honored with multiple awards from the Society of American Baseball Research, including the SABR Analytics Conference Research Award in historical analysis , McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award and SABR Analytics Conference Research Award in contemporary commentary . A graduate from Duke University, she’s also a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America.
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