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LSU star guard Flau’Jae Johnson is opting to skip the 2025 WNBA draft and will return to college basketball for her senior season, a source told ESPN Thursday.
Johnson could either return to LSU for the 2025-26 season or enter the transfer portal before it closes on April 22 and weigh offseason NIL offers, the source said.
The news was first reported by The Athletic.
The 5-foot-10 guard has spent her entire college career in Baton Rouge and is intent on returning for her final year of college eligibility rather than enter the draft, which takes place in New York on April 14. In 2025, players had until Monday night to declare for the WNBA draft unless their teams were still active in postseason play as of Sunday, in which case they were granted 48 hours after their season ended to decide.
LSU’s season ended with a 72-65 loss to the UCLA Bruins in Sunday’s regional final, so Johnson had to tell the league if she would enter this year’s draft by midnight on Tuesday.
Because Johnson will turn 22 in November, she was eligible to enter this year’s WNBA draft despite not having completed a full four college seasons. In addition to the WNBA, Unrivaled is also in Johnson’s professional future.
Unrivaled signed Johnson, as well as UConn’s Paige Bueckers — who has announced her intention to enter the WNBA draft — to NIL deals that include equity in the league and set the stage for them to join once their college careers are concluded.
The 2024-25 season was the best of Johnson’s three in Baton Rouge thus far, which began with her starting for the Tigers team that won the 2023 national championship as a freshman. This year, Johnson averaged a career-high 18.6 points and was named a third-team All-American by the Associated Press and the USBWA.
Johnson is one of the most marketable players in her sport, appearing during seemingly every other commercial break for women’s and men’s March Madness telecasts. She led the No. 3 seed Tigers (31-6) with 28 points on 10-17 shooting during their Elite Eight loss to UCLA.
Information from ESPN’s Kevin Pelton and The Associated Press was used in this report.
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