Despite 2 WNBA titles, LV Aces star envies Flau’jae Johnson’s NCAA feat – EssentiallySports

Flau’jae Johnson isn’t letting a reshuffled LSU Tigers roster stop her from contending for another championship. Now in her junior year, the 20-year-old’s freshman year has set her up for success as the Lady Tigers beat Caitlin Clark’s Iowa in 2023. Last year, they lost in the Elite Eight to the same opponents. Now that Kim Mulkey’s team is aiming for another trophy, one WNBA star is raving about what the rapper has done in her first year in Baton Rouge.

Appears in the last episode of Johnson’s The best of both worlds podcast were Aces star Sydney Colson and LSU alum Teresa Plaisance. When the Tigers guard asks how it’s different to win the WNBA and NCAA, Colson recalls his days at Texas A&M. But the 2011 second-round pick still had praise for Johnson, “It’s huge especially to win – like I have to win in my senior year. I was walking out, yeah, it’s amazing. It’s cool to end on that note, but it’s also pretty spectacular that you have to do it young.”

Colson helped the Aggies win the 2011 NCAA title. And while Texas has reached the Sweet Sixteen three times since then and the Elite Eight once, they have yet to capture another trophy. But Colson is confident that in Flaujae Johnson’s case, the Tigers can “recreate what you will do to get there. So it will be fun to do it again.”

The 35-year-old also points out how the relationship off the court helps the performance on the court as well. “It was really great for me because our team just came together so well, just as people. I’m sure your team will be like that off the court. It’s not always necessary for a team to win on the court, you don’t have to like everyone, you just have to play well together. But I definitely think it helps when you really mess with each other and then you’re super hard on the court. It’s just different.”

Johnson, of course, had Angel Reese by his side when the two competed together the previous two seasons. With Reese now in Chicago and their relationship not what it used to be, the LSU junior is still making appearances. The latest exhibition performance against Xavier Musketari proved that, as Johnson finished the game with 30 points on 13-19 shooting and 10 rebounds. And yet this is not enough for her.

Flau’jae Johnson is ‘hungrier than ever’

The taste of a championship right in her first year, which also featured record attendance, was huge for Flau’jae Johnson. The Tigers fell short last year, but the Kim Mulkey-led side are poised to reclaim the trophy this season. And Johnson is leading the charge.

“I’m not going to lie, we have to win” Johnson said on the podcast. “It’ll just be putting it together, but I need a chip. I need another chip, not gonna lie, I’m hungrier than ever. Simply because I really know what it takes and I know what it looks like to go there and what you have to do. Like when you’ve already tasted it before you know the expectations, what it takes, what you have to do, and I feel like we have the pieces to make it happen.”

She also commented on her double-double, saying how she didn’t treat the game as an exhibition match. For her, it was setting the pace during the season and proving that she is here to stay.

It won’t be easy considering everyone in the NCAA is hungry for that ultimate title. The LSU Tigers defeated the Xavier Musketeers in this exhibition game by a score of 114-53, a whopping 61 point margin. Perhaps this bodes well for the future!