Earlier this year, an LSU coach posed a question to Flau’jae Johnson that was deeper than the typical query about defensive coverages or offensive sets.
When the final buzzer sounded on her LSU career, would she be sad?
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“Nah,” Johnson recalled telling him. “These last four years, I gave everything. I lived in the gym. I didn’t do much partying. I really poured everything I could into LSU.”
Maybe “sad” was the wrong adjective. Overwhelming emotion proved the better descriptor of a national champion who stayed at the program all four years, reached deep into her community and left it all for them on the court they shared.
One of the sport’s most well-recognized stars exited her final game at LSU’s Pete Maravich Assembly Center to hugs, tears and a long embrace with Kim Mulkey as the legendary head coach’s first McDonald’s All-American at the program. The senior Associated Press All-American flashed her hands in the signature “four” for her jersey number and took a seat on the bench, her work long ago done in the Sacramento 2 regional’s second round.
“I lost it,” Johnson said afterward. “I knew I was going to lose it, but I was holding strong. And then my teammates came to hug me and it was a roar I heard in that PMAC. … It was the most beautiful thing that I’ve been a part of.”
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For a fourth consecutive year, Johnson will play in the Sweet 16 following the No. 2 seed’s 101-47 win over No. 7 Texas Tech. The Tigers (29-5) led by as many as 56 and broke the NCAA record for most 100-plus point games in a season with 16. They’re averaging a DI-best 95.1 points per game.
LSU will play No. 3 Duke next weekend in a rematch of LSU’s 93-77 win in North Carolina on Dec. 4.
The entire journey has been “unimaginable,” Johnson said. When she arrived on campus, known more for her rap career than her basketball accolades — a piece of trash talk junior Mikaylah Williams used on her way back when — she thought nothing more than to be named SEC Freshman of the Year.
She accomplished that and added more: national championship, three Elite Eight berths, two All-SEC honors, All-America honors and two all-region teams.
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“Everything else that came with it has been just beyond my wildest dreams,” Johnson said.
Nothing embodies what she’s meant to LSU more than the scenes of her final home game. Since the women’s tournament hosts first- and second-round games on the floors of the top 16 true seeds, the second game of the weekend serves as the ultimate senior day for the nation’s elite programs and players.
There is a finality to it that’s often absent for the official in-season honors. And unlike the crapshoot of a conference opponent that could harm a résumé or seeding, the second round is an opening to flex.
So Johnson did. Many times.
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The 5-foot-10 senior opened the day driving into the paint on nearly the entire Texas Tech team, floating a bucket off the glass as at least three sets of hands reached up for the ball. She had 13 points by half and only two missed baskets as she and Williams paced the rout. Late in the third, she one-handed a transition pass halfway up the court to freshman ZaKiyah Johnson in a doozy of a look.
There was a full 7:45 to play when Mulkey called it, safe in a 50-point lead. The timeout substitution gave Johnson her own moment to soak up the crowd’s appreciation before Mulkey pulled Williams and her other starters. Johnson tied for a team-high 24 points in 25 minutes with a thorough stat line of 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals.
“That’s what you hope happens when they play their last game in their home arena,” Mulkey said. “And that’s what I told her. I said, ‘What a way to go out.’ She was bawling and I was trying not to cry.”
Johnson shared hugs with staffers and arena employees on some of her final game-day runs through the tunnel to the court. Earlier in the day, she signed football coach Lane Kiffin’s jersey. Students paid for tickets to attend the NCAA tournament game, a change from free student sections throughout the year. The national ABC broadcast continually spoke of her philanthropy and community work, financed by her own bank accounts.
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As seniors around the country exited their home arenas for the final times, Johnson’s embraces and the PMAC’s response stood louder than the rest.
“I can’t say it enough,” Mulkey said. “Kids don’t stay at institutions for four years anymore. Everybody’s looking for the next NIL deal. And she stayed here, and she’s impacted so many people in this town that we don’t even know about.”
Johnson was their constant for four years, in an era full of sad good-byes said too early.
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