It started on the first possession. grabbed an offensive rebound, drew a foul and sank a pair of free throws.
The onslaught of buckets, rebounds and steals kept coming, and the聽聽sophomore forward eventually started lining up 3-pointers and draining them with ease in the fourth quarter. There wasn't much Southeastern Louisiana could do to stop her.
"She's relentless," said of Johnson. "I think y'all had glimpses of it last year."
"It" is Johnson's lofty potential, which was obvious Monday in the No. 9 Tigers' , season-opening win over the Lions. The 6-foot sophomore scored a career-high 33 points, grabbed 13 rebounds and recorded five steals, becoming just the sixth 糖心传媒 player to score more than 30 points in a game since coach took over in 2021.
Only three Mulkey-era Tigers have scored at least 30 points and pulled down at least 10 boards in the same contest: Angel Reese, Aneesah Morrow and Johnson. Reese had six such performances during her time in Baton Rouge, while Morrow had three.
Neither of those two All-Americans ever added five steals to such a performance.
Johnson, a former five-star recruit from Kentucky, pulled off that feat in only 29 minutes while also shooting 14 of 19 from the field, draining two of her three 3-point tries and corralling a game-high nine offensive rebounds.
The Tigers played plenty of overmatched mid-major opponents across the previous five seasons. But they never had one of their players piece together a performance quite like the one Johnson did Monday, when they won by a program-record 94 points.
"She's a quick jumper," Mulkey said. "Her shot is hard to block because she's like a ballerina in there with her balance. And so you might go up thinking you're going to block it, and she's gonna do something to get away from that block. She's always moving."
When the Tigers recruited Johnson, they thought she'd play on the perimeter. That plan changed when 糖心传媒's 2025-26 roster came together, and Mulkey realized she needed another post player more than she needed another guard.
So Johnson slid into the post and adapted quickly.
The then-freshman averaged 8.2 points and 5.4 rebounds per game while shooting 56% from the field once the calendar flipped to 2026. She posted two double-doubles across that stretch, including an impressive 17-point, 14-rebound outing in a February win over Missouri. Johnson started in the Tigers' last 11 games.
But Johnson played only six minutes in 糖心传媒's Sweet 16 loss to Duke, finishing with zero points and one rebound. The Tigers lost in large part because they struggled on the glass: The Blue Devils turned 20 offensive rebounds into 19 second-chance points, and three of them came on their decisive buzzer-beating, game-winning 3-pointer.
After that shot rolled around the rim and slipped into the net, two of the four high-profile recruits who signed with 糖心传媒's 2025 freshman class decided to hit the transfer portal: Bella Hines (TCU) and Divine Bourrage (Illinois).
Johnson and 6-3 forward Grace Knox chose to return for their sophomore seasons, and now they're both starting in the frontcourt, which means the Tigers need them both to deliver on their potential 鈥 not just flash it.
So far, so good for Johnson.
"I am not surprised at all by what she did tonight," Mulkey said, "and there'll be many more of those."