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Flau’jae “Big 4” Johnson and Mikaylah “12” Williams are on campus at Louisiana State University for a visit when they enter the Pete Maravich Assembly Center (PMAC). They both look up into the rafters. The winning heritage and history of LSU can be felt throughout the arena, where legends like Seimone Augustus, Sylvia Fowles, Joyce Walker and so many others set the foundation.
“We're gonna be here together, and we[’re] basically gonna take over,” Williams, who is a year younger than Johnson and from Boosier City, remembers them saying to each other at the time. Williams committed to the Tigers in June 2022, and by that August, Johnson unveiled her college decision, too. In her music video for “All Falls Down,” which featured Lil Boosie and Mikewillmadeit, Flau’jae announced that she too would be suiting up for the Tigers. Johnson went on to dominate in SEC and all of college basketball during her first year at LSU, winning conference Freshman of the Year and a National Title. That same year, Williams returned on campus for a visit and played one-on-one with Johnson, showing her a glimpse of what she’s really about.
“She got to the hole and she bumped me. Like, she bumped me, bumped me,.” Big 4 says, “and I was like, Oh, yeah she's strong. A pure scorer."
Going into the 2023-24 season, Johnson saw an opportunity to take Williams, who had led her high school, Parkway (Bossier City, LA), to a state championship in her senior year, “under her wing.”
“It was my goal to make her freshman the year after me [and] we did that,” Johnson says to us now while inside the team’s practice gym for their SLAMU digital cover shoot. They’re sitting together now, on an afternoon in January, alongside All-American forward Aneesah Morrow, who joined LSU from DePaul via transfer portal that same ’23-24 season. Bringing both experience and veteran leadership, Morrow also saw something in her new teammates: an opportunity to be themselves and feel seen.
“I just wanted to make sure that all my teammates felt open, that they all had a voice [and] they could speak up on things whenever they wanted to,” the Chicago native says, “having that experience, being able to stay poised [and] pulling them to the side and talking to them.”
All of that happened and so much more: Williams went on to average 14.5 points per game as a freshman and was named SEC Freshman of the Year, just like Big 4 said she would. Morrow made her presence known in the conference, averaging a double-double. Johonson who elevated her game to then-career highs in her sophomore season (this year, she’s upped her numbers across the stat sheet) all while establishing herself as a leader, too. The Tigers finished the season with a 31-6 record and ultimately lost to Iowa in the regional final of the NCAA tournament.
But that was then. By the time this cover pops up on your feed, you’re looking at the No. 7 team in the country, right on the heels of Texas and South Carolina. Our three cover stars are letting their game do all the talking as the team’s leading scorers. Johnson has grown and evolved as a more efficient scorer while averaging a career-high 20 points per game this season. Morrow is a double-double machine with 18.2 points and 14.2 boards, and she and Big 4 have just been named to the Naismith Watch List.
As for Williams, she’s proven she can hold her own and put up crazy elite numbers, including a 37-point performance against Oklahoma last month. What happens when you bring the best out of Chicago’s, Savannah’s and Boosier City’s own? True competitors that refuse to settle this year.
“Anything less than a Final Four, I'm not gonna be happy about because I know what this team is capable of,” Johnson tells us, her Southern twang emphasizing each word when she speaks. It’s clear, especially now, that she wants to run it back. “We’re trying to go all the way [and] get better every day. We could be so good. We’re right there. You know when you looking at something and you’re, like, right there. With a team, that's why it's so cool because it takes so many different components to get where we’re at, but, man, once you get a taste of that national championship, that's the kind of standard we have here now. We're not going for nothing less at all.”
Going into the 2024-24 season, the Tigers were No. 7 in the women’s college basketball preseason rankings. They wasted no time getting right to winning and destroying opponents like Murray State by upwards of 70-plus points (true story) and getting dub after dub after dub. By the time they faced Washington in November, the Tigers were on a six-game winning streak.
The Huskies, though, proved to be their first true test. In a matchup that came down to the wire, the Tigers eventually pulled away thanks to a clutch layup and steal from Kailyn Gilbert. The final score: 68-67. The winning streak continued, but it wasn’t pretty.“That was our first taste of adversity, right?” asks Johnson to her teammates, to which Morrow agrees. “Being able to fight back, like that was the dog fight the whole game, and being able to come out on top,” she says.
Everyone knows that in March, nothing is promised. One loss means you’re out. In order to get back to the mountaintop, they needed to take things up a level. The best word to describe the Tigers this year, and our cover trio, is growth. As Morrow tells it: “I know how far I came, from coming into a powerhouse, dealing with challenges—[like] being taken out of the starting lineup to being put back on the starting lineup—having to adjust, learn plays, do everything and be as dependable as I [can] be,” she says. “I've done that this year. I would say growth for Flau’jae, because I've seen her grow tremendously with trying to be a leader, actually being there for her teammates—not saying that she didn't last year—but her approach is different this year. And 12 is really mature, off the floor and on the floor, a lot. And it shows in her game.”
For Williams, growth looks like building upon what she learned as a freshman and is now stepping up to motivate and support her teammates. “Being new to the system, and knowing how hard it is and what Coach [Kim] Mulkey expects, just being that one person that tells everybody, like, It’s OK to mess up. I know everybody yelling at you, everybody harping at you and everything, but at the same time, it's OK, you're human, you're gonna mess up, and just give them that encouragement that they need.”
And as for Johnson, that also means being the type of leader that the team needs. “I think this season is just like you always just got to kind of learn people…I just learned how to work with different people. You feel me? Everybody ain't the same—everybody not gonna click the same immediately. Some stuff just takes time. This was really, for me, a growth year of learning everybody, my whole team. I never had to do that before because that was never my responsibility. But now, stepping more into the leadership role [means] you have to learn [about] your teammates. It's been fun seeing everybody come out they shell.”
Good things take time, especially when it comes to establishing team culture and chemistry. According to Johnson and Williams, Morrow didn’t talk much for the first six months when she first arrived at LSU, but that’s because she was reading the room.
“The reason why I'm quiet is because I sit back and I observe people before I actually come and talk to them, because I have to know how to approach certain people,” Morrow clarifies.
First impressions are one thing, though, but it’s clear now that the Tigers are a unit. Just like the Bayou, this LSU squad is a melting pot of different experiences, cultures and individual approaches to the game, but when you put them all together, it’s magic.
“I think the crazy thing about LSU and Coach Mulkey is she lets you play your style of game, as long as you play it within our system,” says Williams. “It's not like I came to LSU and had to completely change my game…We just got to put all our games together and make a huge impact.”
For the trio, their style of play has been molded by grassroots basketball and their hometowns. The sacrifices each of them has made to get to this moment goes beyond just practice and games. They show up every day not just for the name on the back of their jerseys, but for their cities.“When you plant roots somewhere, you don’t always realize the impact you have,” says Flau’jae, who had her jersey retired at the conclusion of her historic high school career and has since evolved into not just a champion but a businesswoman and musician.
Johnson firmly adds: “I want people to know that I was resilient enough to persevere. Nothing worth doing is easy, but if I can come to LSU and make it happen, I know I can go anywhere and succeed. That’s the legacy I want to leave.”
Morrow recently had her jersey retired, too, at the legendary Simeon High School, where she averaged 28.4 points, 14.3 rebounds, and 3 steals per game and led the program to their first state championship as a five-star recruit. “It’s just a testament to how hard Neese works and all the sacrifices—the blood, sweat, and tears she’s poured into this game,” Williams said.
Now Morrow is a powerhouse and future first-round pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft. “Whoever get to play with Neese when she leaves here, [it] is going to be the biggest blessing of their life,” Williams adds. “Neese brings energy, leadership and when you playing with Neese, you don't have no choice but to go hard, or she coming right at you and she gonna make you go hard.”
And then there’s the hometown hero, who wants to put on for her own on the brightest stage. “I want to show all the little girls coming behind me that it’s possible to be from Louisiana, stay at home and do something big,” Williams shared. “I want them to see that with hard work and sacrifice, they can make it to the biggest stage of their lives.”
To be able to play for LSU, on the brightest stage with the world watching is not something every girl from cities big or small gets to do. Regardless of what happens during the madness of the tournament, just know they’re not taking any moment for granted.
“It’s people from our city dying to be doing this,” Johnson says, “so just to see all that hard work being rewarded makes you feel good.”
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