The road to the 2026 Final Four is moving to Sacramento, but the final stop in Baton Rouge was one for the history books. In Sunday’s dominant 101-47 second-round win over No. 7 seed Texas Tech, the LSU Tigers punched their ticket to the Sweet 16 for the fourth straight year. While the 54-point blowout made headlines, the afternoon belonged to Flau’jae Johnson, who played her final game inside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

Johnson, who has started 140 games since arriving on campus, tied for a team-high 24 points in just 25 minutes. Her performance helped LSU set a new NCAA Division I record with 16 games of 100-plus points in a single season. The Tigers currently lead the nation in scoring at 95.1 points per game and showed why on Sunday, leading by as many as 56 points in front of a sold-out home crowd.

The most poignant moment of the day came with 7:44 remaining in the fourth quarter. As Kim Mulkey called for a substitution to give her senior a curtain call, Johnson was met with a thunderous standing ovation. Tears began to fall as she shared a long, emotional embrace with Mulkey on the sideline. Videos of the exit quickly went viral, showing Johnson pulling her jersey over her face to wipe her eyes before acknowledging the 11,095 fans in attendance one last time.

“Yeah, I lost it,” Johnson said after the win. “I knew I was going to lose it, but I was holding strong. Then my teammates came and hugged me and it was like a roar I heard in that PMAC, and it was like, ‘Wow.’ I gave everything I had and just let everything out. It was the most beautiful thing that I've been a part of.”

The Savannah native’s legacy in Baton Rouge is undeniable. As the first McDonald’s All-American signed by Mulkey at LSU, Johnson was the cornerstone of a rebuild that resulted in the 2023 national championship. She leaves the PMAC as the winningest player in the arena’s history, boasting a 69-4 record on the home floor.

LSU now heads to the regional semifinals to face Duke.