It’s not often that our man Shaq will rank another athlete ahead of himself, but he’s just done it. Speaking on his latest podcast episode, O’Neal called LSU women’s basketball star Angel Reese the best… ever.
That’s right! On the newest (as of this posting) episode of “The Big Podcast with Shaquille O’Neal,” the big man said Reese was the greatest, regardless of gender. Big talk for the former LSU men’s hoops star and Hall of Fame member.
If you watched the ladies’ NCAA basketball tournament, you know Reese led the Tigers to their first national championship earlier this month, scoring 15 points and pulling down 10 rebounds in the Championship game against the Iowa Hawkeyes. Over the course of the season, Reese averaged 23 points and 15.4 rebounds, while also setting the NCAA Division I record for double-doubles in a single season.
To say Reese had a good year would be an understatement. In addition to the great numbers, she was also named an unanimous first-team All-American, and was also named the women’s March Madness’ Most Outstanding Player.
So… naming Reese as the “best ever” from his alma mater is a pretty big deal. Keep in mind the Tigers have had some pretty big names in other sports, too. How about Cincinnati Bengals – and former Tiger – quarterback Joe Burrow? In Shaq’s own words, he says is not as “athletic” as Reese. Yup, better than Joe Cool.
Shaq on The Big Podcast: “She’s probably the greatest athlete ever to come out of LSU sports. You heard it here first. Male and female. Ever.”
He even gave his reasons for why he put Reese as number one: “Because, guess what? She delivered. She delivered that package. See, a lot of us got the package, and we still got the package in our truck. She delivered that package. So, you know, there’s a lot of names you could throw around – men and women – but she’s probably the greatest athlete. Some people are going to exclude it to women athletes. I’m not doing that. She’s the greatest athlete to ever come out of LSU.”
Still, O’Neal did have good things to say about Burrow, noting that Burrow won the college football national championship title in 2019 as well as the Heisman trophy.
Along with Burrow, LSU has quite the roster of sports stars, including of course Shaq himself, along with fellow basketball Hall of Famer Pete Maravich to track and field star’s Lolo Jones and Armand Duplantis.