It started on the first possession. ZaKiyah Johnson grabbed an offensive rebound, drew a foul and sank a pair of free throws.

And then the onslaught of buckets, rebounds and steals kept going – to the point of the fourth quarter in which one of the LSU women's basketball team’s sophomore forward started lining up 3-pointers and draining them with ease. There wasn't much Southeastern Louisiana could do to stop her.

"She's relentless," Mikaylah Williams said. "I think y'all had glimpses of it last year."

"It" being Johnson's lofty potential, which was obvious on Monday in the No. 9 Tigers' record-setting, 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 LSU player to score more than 30 points in a game since coach Kim Mulkey took over the program in 2021.

Now, 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, though, ever added five steals to one of her 30-point, 10-rebound outings.

Johnson, a former five-star recruit from Kentucky, pulled off that impressive 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 first five years of Mulkey's tenure.

But they never had one of their players piece together a performance quite like the one Johnson did on 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 Mulkey and her staff recruited Johnson, they thought she'd play on the perimeter in Baton Rouge. That plan changed when LSU's 2025-26 roster came together, and Mulkey realized she needed another post player more than she needed another guard.

So Johnson slid down 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. Then Johnson started each of the Tigers' last 11 games.

The 2025-26 season just didn't end on a positive note for the do-it-all sophomore.

Johnson played only six minutes in LSU'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 3-pointer.

After that shot rolled around the rim and slipped into the net, two of the four high-profile recruits who signed with LSU's 2025 freshman classes 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 that the Tigers need them both to deliver on their potential – 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."