Many consider Shaquille O’Neal to be hands down one of the greatest centers to ever grace the basketball court. He won four NBA Championships titles with the Los Angeles Lakers and the Miami Heat. The Hall of Famer has also featured for the legendary college basketball team at Louisiana State University from where he got drafted into the NBA, to Orlando Magic. Recently he came under fire for a comment he made regarding one of the NCAA athletes.
Louisiana State University is known for producing world-class athletes in several major sports such as the NFL, NBA and the WNBA. Some of the biggest names that the LSU has produced are Joe Burrow, Angel Reese, Shaquille O’Neal and Petr Maravich. However, Shaq recently came under fire for supporting Reese after she led LSU to the March Madness championship title.
Shaq gets criticized for his comments on Angel Reese
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Recently, Shaq was in the news for calling NCAA basketball athlete Angel Reese the greatest athlete in LSU sports history. Safe to say, it did not go down well with some people. On a podcast by Jason Whitlock, the host criticized Shaq’s comments and said “This pandering, the woman scored fifteen points, they are acting like she dropped forty. For the record on my show, I said one last time we’ll talk about this subject because I was so outraged.”
He added, “Here’s the thing about all this pandering they are doing to Angel Reese and again this is the whole matriarchal culture. Everybody is doing this worship of women, but no one can remember if you ask someone to tell me a basket she made. What’s her highlight play? She scored a bunch of putbacks, a handful of putbacks.”
It’s safe to say Jason doesn’t believe that Angel is even close to being in the debate of being the greatest LSU athlete of all time. He thinks there are several athletes better than her at present.
Shaq had also defended Reese for a controversial gesture she made during the final moments of the March Madness finals. Reese has also now found support coming from a boxer.
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Female boxing star speaks up in support of Angel Reese
Angel Reese was heavily criticized after the trash-talking incident between her and Caitlin Clark of the Iowa State college basketball team which faced off with Reese’s Tigers for the NCAA Women’s finals. She was seen making a ‘You can’t see me’ gesture, as popularized by WWE icon John Cena, and many people were not pleased with it. They felt it was disrespectful and were quite vocal about it.
However, Claressa Shields, who is considered one of the greatest boxers of all time came out in support of the college star. She claims that Angel is just trying to be confident and show a bold side to the world. She also appreciated how a woman athlete is the face of college basketball.
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WATCH THIS STORY:? Kareem Abdul Jabbar calls out businessman for calling Angel Reese a ‘classless piece of shit’
What are your thoughts on Angel Reese? Is Shaquille O’Neal right in defending and glorifying her? Share your views on the college star in the comments below!