Flau’jae Johnson Sends Strong Message to Kim Mulkey After LSU Decision

LSU Tigers women’s basketball star Flau’jae Johnson opted to bypass the 2025 WNBA Draft and return to college for another year.

It was a bit of a surprising move, although the world of NIL has certainly made that decision a bit easier for college stars such as Johnson.

Johnson then decided not to transfer elsewhere but to continue her career at LSU and play for head coach Kim Mulkey.

In a recent interview with Annie Costabile of Front Office Sports, Johnson stated that she “definitely” wants to win.

“This is my last year,” Johnson said. “I definitely want to win, but I want to make sure I’m being developed to be the player that I want to be in the WNBA. Trying to find out how I can make that happen this year. I want to be as prepared as possible.”

Moreover, she mentioned that she is ready to do what she has not done in recent years.

“It’s going to be me, allowing Coach Mulkey to coach the hell out of me,” Johnson said. “Just so everybody else falls in line. I’m going to have to be the one to take that to show an example, this is the standard here. I’m ready to do that. I wasn’t ready to do that in my previous years. Now, I know what it takes.”

Johnson has played the past three seasons at LSU and was teammates with Angel Reese and Hailey Van Lith.

In 2024-25, Johnson averaged a career-high 18.6 points per game and tied her career-high in assists (2.5 per game) while averaging 5.6 rebounds.

Now, she has one more chance to improve her WNBA Draft stock, and it should be interesting to see how she does in her final season in Baton Rouge.