A championship-winning duo is reuniting in Indiana, and Raven Johnson is ready to once again follow the lead of her former mentor. With Raven Johnson heading into the Indiana Fever as the 10th overall pick in the 2026 WNBA draft, plenty of storylines emerged.

Speaking to SiriusXM’s Rachel DeMita, Raven made her thoughts known on how she sees this reunion with Aliyah Boston. “Yeah, that is crazy, that is so crazy, honestly, like she’s the best to team up with. She’s the best to look up to. She has these pro habits. She has like this personality. It’s great, like it’s so bubbly, but she’s also a great human being outside of basketball,” said Raven Johnson, clearly showing the amount of respect she has for Boston.

Johnson and Boston played under Dawn Staley in Columbus, where Boston served as a mentor to Johnson. Boston had, in fact, led South Carolina to the 2022 national championship before being drafted No. 1 overall by the Indiana Fever in 2023.

It was then Johnson’s turn to pick up from where she left, which culminated during her senior year as she helped lead the Gamecocks to the national championship game. Johnson played 40 games during the 2025-26 season, averaging 9.9 points on 48.6% shooting, 4.0 rebounds, 5.1 assists, and 1.5 steals in 28.7 minutes per contest. She also knocked down 1.0 triples per game on a 39.8% clip.

So it was an unspoken passing of the torch when Boston departed for the Fever, as Raven took on the responsibility for the team. Johnson won two titles with South Carolina in 2022 and 2024. She is the reigning SEC Defensive Player of the Year, an AP All-American, and a two-time All-SEC team member, to name a few of her accolades.

The last time they played together was when Johnson was a freshman, and Boston was a senior at South Carolina, and now the dynamic will remain the same. Johnson will be the rookie, and Boston again the senior. Only the landscape is altered.

So now that Johnson is making her way into the Fever, what does her old friend and mentor, Boston, make of this?

Aliyah Boston Can’t Contain Excitement at Johnson’s Introduction to Fever Country

Raven Johnson is certainly excited about joining up with a team like the Indiana Fever, but probably not as much as her ‘old buddy’ Aliyah Boston, who is literally jumping with glee at having her as a future teammate.

“My freshieee babyyyy, Let’s get it, Ray Ray,” Boston wrote on a repost of the Fever’s Raven Johnson draft announcement.

Well, you can’t blame her. The chance of reconnecting with a dear old friend with whom you share fond memories is enough to get you interested. To date, Johnson is the highest WNBA draft pick for South Carolina since Kamilla Cardoso went No. 3 overall in 2024.

Coming from a top program like South Carolina, she comes with a winning pedigree. Johnson closed her college career with a 109-8 record. She averaged a career-high 9.9 points and 5.1 assists per game and shot a career-best 48.6% from the floor and 39.9% from the 3-point line this season.

Johnson has won at the highest level, and that tells you about how she can be a proven winner if Fever allows her to thrive. Even the Fever coach feels that she is “immediately ready” on the defensive end, which is something her team needs her to be.

“First and foremost, she’s a winner; she’s won at every level and set the tone at every level. She’s experienced in big-time moments, so I’m really excited that she fell to us,” Fever head coach Stephanie White said of her team’s latest acquisition.

Johnson’s joining the Fever brings them someone reliable and capable of operating at the highest level. Her upcoming partnership with Boston is giving the fans positive vibes that something good is about to come when this backcourt and frontcourt alliance ravages the opposition.