Shaq’s daughter chooses SEC rival over NCAA champs, dad’s alma mater LSU

Shaquille O’Neal has a new reason to attend SEC women’s basketball games. Although he might be cheering for a former rival.

The four-time NBA champion’s youngest child, daughter Me’Arah O’Neal, committed to play college basketball for the Florida Gators. The four-star prospect, who is ranked No. 33 for the Class of 2024 by ESPN, shared the news of her college decision on Instagram Live on Sunday, choosing the school over her father’s alma mater, LSU. The Tigers, coached by Kim Mulkey, are the reigning NCAA national champions.

‘I will be committing to the University of Florida,’ O’Neal, a senior at Episcopal High School in Houston, said as she popped a balloon that had blue, orange and green confetti in it. She unbuttoned a black letterman jacket to reveal a blue T-shirt with the Gators logo.

The Gators made it to the quarterfinals of the NIT last year. A season earlier, they earned a spot in the 2022 NCAA tournament, their first bid in the Big Dance since 2016, when they lost in the first round. That was head coach Kelly Rae Finley’s first year in Gainesville, and she was named USA Today Sports Network SEC Coach of the Year. The Gators welcomed McDonald’s All-American Laila Reynolds to its squad this year and are off to a 2-0 start.

‘I went on the Florida visit, and I had a feeling that’s where I belonged,’ O’Neal told ESPN of her decision. ‘And that I was going to be most successful if I went to go play at Florida. I felt like I connected with Coach Kelly more than I connected with any of the other schools that recruited me. She really cares about me not just on the court but off the court. That’s important for me.’

The LSU women’s basketball team beat the Iowa Hawkeyes in April for the program’s first NCAA women’s basketball championship. Tigers star Angel Reese, the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, signed an endorsement deal with Reebok as the brand’s first major NIL deal after O’Neal was named president of basketball for the athletic apparel company.

In his Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech in 2016, the former Los Angeles Lakers star had high praise for his youngest daughter.

‘I don’t like to put pressure on my babies, but she works out with my sons and I think it’s fair to say one day, if she continues, Me’Arah will probably be the best women’s basketball player ever,’ he said. ‘She’s that good.’