BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — After Flau’jae Johnson nearly willed the LSU women’s basketball team back to the Final Four last season, she could have walked off the court in Spokane, Washington, and called it a collegiate career.

The WNBA was there. Johnson, then a junior, was age-eligible to declare for the draft. But something pulled her back to the Tigers — be it a need to add more tools to her game, a desire to maximize her earning potential or an itch to team back up with Mikaylah Williams and try to bookend her collegiate experience with national championships.

LSU won it all when she was a freshman, then fell one step shy of the Final Four when she was both a sophomore and a junior.

“It was a thought to leave,” Johnson said, “just for the business side. Like, people think that your N

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