Raven Johnson is headed to the Indiana Fever, and the former South Carolina guard says the teammate she is most excited to play with is Caitlin Clark. The Fever selected Johnson with the 10th overall pick in the WNBA Draft on Monday, putting two players linked by one of college basketball’s most replayed moments on the same roster.
Johnson did not hide her enthusiasm after the pick. She called Clark a phenomenal player and said the Iowa star can shoot, lead a team and win, adding that Clark has a winning mentality. For Indiana, the pairing adds another layer to a roster that already includes Kelsey Mitchell, Lexie Hull and Sophie Cunningham after the club re-signed all three and brought in Monique Billings in free agency.
The relationship between Clark and Johnson carries baggage from the 2023 NCAA women’s Final Four, when Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes played Johnson’s South Carolina Gamecocks and Clark waved Johnson off to double-team another South Carolina player. The clip went viral, and Johnson later said she was all over the internet after it spread.
In March, Johnson said on the I AM NEXT podcast that the attention turned ugly. She said she was bashed, bullied and called things she was not, including a monkey. Johnson said she hated the internet because of that situation, at one point wanted to quit basketball and wanted to retreat into a bubble of isolation and be by herself.
That backdrop is part of what gives Monday’s draft result its edge. Indiana is being treated as a serious contender for the 2026 season after finishing with the fourth-best title odds behind the Minnesota Lynx, the Las Vegas Aces and the New York Liberty, and after its season ended with a 107-98 overtime loss to the Aces in Game 5. Johnson now steps into that chase alongside the player at the center of her most painful college memory, turning a viral rivalry into a professional partnership the Fever will try to make work.
