BATON ROUGE, La. – LSU women’s basketball head coach Kim Mulkey will be joined by Flau’jae Johnson, Mikaylah Williams, and MiLaysia Fulwiley to represent LSU at 2025 SEC Media Day.
The event will run over two days in Birmingham, Ala., with both the LSU men and LSU women attending on October 15, starting five minutes apart from each other. The women’s team is scheduled to occupy an early afternoon time slot. Portions of it will be broadcast on the SEC Network.
Mulkey returns for her fifth season leading the Tigers after another Elite Eight run last season. LSU returns key players including First-Team All-SEC duo featuring Johnson and Williams. Kailyn Gilbert, an important role player who logged impactful minutes last year, also returns to the loaded backcourt alongside sophomore Jada Richard, who will look to build on her strong freshman season. Senior Izzy Besselman also returns to this year’s squad for the final time in her hometown.
LSU brought in a trio of transfers. The Tigers added the gem of the offseason recruiting cycle in Fulwiley from South Carolina and two post players, Amiya Joyner from East Carolina and Kate Koval from Notre Dame.
LSU will put the No. 1 recruiting class on display this season with Bella Hines, ZaKiyah Johnson, Divine Bourrage, and Grace Knox. LSU’s class was unanimously ranked No. 1 across all the different recruiting services. All four signees were five-star recruits who rank as high as the top-24. LSU would add Meghan Yarnevich in May to round out the freshman class for the 2025-26 season.
The Tigers will host two exhibition games which will be open to the public at the end of this month. LSU will face Mississippi College on Oct. 23 and Langston on Oct. 30. LSU’s season opener will be Nov. 4 at home against Houston Christian.
Johnson enters her fourth and final season in Baton Rouge as one of the top returning guards in the country. Johnson is coming off a strong junior campaign after being an integral part to the Tigers’ third-straight Elite Eight appearance. Last season, she averaged 18.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game. Johnson closed the year strong against UCLA, putting up a career high 28 points. The 2023 SEC Freshman of the Year, Johnson was a critical piece as a starter on LSU’s first National Championship team in Mulkey’s second season. Not just a star on the court, Johnson has built her star-power as a rapper too. She released her most recent single “Courtside” featuring Waka Flocka Flame in August.
Williams is entering her third season at LSU after averaging 17.2 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.3 assists in her sophomore year. Williams is one the purest scorers on the women’s basketball scene with the ability to impact the game from anywhere on the court, offensively and defensively. Williams, who was named the 2024 SEC Freshman of the Year, made the jump in her second season to First Team All-SEC. She had 11 games last season with at least 20 points and two with at least 30 points. Williams made a turnaround jumper at the buzzer to force overtime against Stanford and hit two threes in overtime to propel LSU to the win, finishing with 32 points in the SEC/ACC Challenge. She drained seven threes, including one in the final minute to put the game on ice, to finish with 37 points against Oklahoma and hit the knockout three in the final minute at Kentucky to help complete a 16-point comeback victory.
Fulwiley, a game-changing 5-10 guard joined the LSU program in the offseason as one of the nation’s most creative offensive players. In her two seasons at South Carolina, she came off the bench in all but three of her 77 games with the Gamecocks, averaging 11.7 points, 2.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.6 steals. Fulwiley was a crucial piece to two-straight national championship appearances with one national title in hand from her freshman season. Fulwiley came to LSU as the SEC Sixth Woman of the Year after helping her previous program to an SEC Championship and an NCAA Championship appearance against the University of Connecticut. In her freshman year, Fulwiley was on the 2024 SEC All-Freshman team and was the MVP of the SEC Tournament. She led the Gamecocks in scoring 11 times throughout the season. In the SEC Tournament Championship, Fulwiley scored a career-high 24 points. In the national semifinal, her four steals helped spark South Carolina. She scored seven points in a critical 11-0 run in the second quarter of the national championship.
