Fever Draft Pick Raven Johnson Has History With Aliyah Boston, Caitlin Clark
The 2026 WNBA Draft has now arrived, and the Indiana Fever made an interesting choice with their first-round pick (No. 10 overall).
The Fever selected former South Carolina Gamecocks star guard Raven Johnson. There's no question that Johnson had a fantastic college career, is immediately going to be an elite defender in the league, and has a great relationship with Aliyah Boston, with whom she won a championship at South Carolina back in 2022.
RAVEN TO THE FEVER 🤩
— ESPN (@espn) April 14, 2026
With the No. 10 pick in the WNBA draft, the Indiana Fever select Raven Johnson‼️ pic.twitter.com/l8vF0TIqaJ
Yet, the first thing that many people thought about when this pick was made was Johnson's history with superstar guard Caitlin Clark.
Raven Johnson Admitted Caitlin Clark Nearly Made Her Quit Basketball
Clark's Iowa Hawkeyes beat Johnson and Boston's South Carolina Gamecocks in the Final Four of the 2023 NCAA Tournament. Clark went nuclear in that game, scoring 41 points (including 5 made three-pointers) and adding 6 rebounds and 8 assists, which ended South Carolina's season.
Johnson and Clark were defending each other during that game. And throughout, Clark was daring Johnson to shoot from three-point range, playing way off her while she stood with the ball at the three-point arc and waving her hand as if to say she wasn't a threat from there.
When speaking about this on a March 28 episode of the "I AM NEXT" podcast, Johnson said, "That's one reason I hate the internet now, because of that situation. Like, I got bashed, I got bullied, I got called all these things that I wasn't... I don't know. It was just things like that, and I just think I wanted to quit basketball at that time. And I just wanted to go into this little bubble of isolation, and just be by myself. And I think, you know, I leaned on God, I had some wonderful teammates, wonderful people in my life."
Talk about adding fuel to the fire…
— I AM ATHLETE (@IAMATHLETEpod) March 28, 2026
In 2023 Raven Johnson went VIRAL for being waved off by Caitlin Clark at the 3 point line 🤯
Raven told us how that moment came full circle 😤‼️ pic.twitter.com/HFCMaNnOlp
Johnson noted that she and the Gamecocks got revenge on Clark's Hawkeyes for that game one year later, defeating them in the 2024 national championship.
However, both of them will need to put any history aside, as they're teammates now and playing the same position.
It will be awesome to see these two going head-to-head during the Fever's training camp and at practices throughout the season. Regardless of what has happened in the past, these two are both fiery competitors and will surely respect that about the other. In fact, it wouldn't be surprising to see a friendship form between them, given that seems to be the nature of Indiana's locker room.
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the Indiana Fever and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.
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