First lady Jill Biden says she wants to break with tradition and invite not only the winning women’s NCAA basketball team to the White House but to also include the runners-up in a celebration.
While that would be an honor for any team, at least one player on the championship LSU Tigers team is not fond of the idea.
Biden said after Sunday’s championship game she would like President Joe Biden to invite both teams to the White House to celebrate women in sports, but LSU player Angel Reese said that idea was a “joke.”
“I know we’ll have the champions come to the White House, we always do,” Biden, who was at American Airlines Center in Dallas to witness LSU’s win, said in Denver on Monday via ESPN. “So, we hope LSU will come. But, you know, I’m going to tell Joe I think Iowa should come, too, because they played such a good game.”
According to CNN, the first lady’s press secretary said that only LSU was being invited to the White House.
Vanessa Valdivia said in a tweet that the first lady’s comments “were intended to applaud the historic game and all women athletes. She looks forward to celebrating the LSU Tigers on their championship win at the White House.”
While Reese, who was named the NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player following her 15-point, 10-rebound game, posted her opinion of Biden’s idea, she has been the subject of social media comments and arguments after she mimicked John Cena’s “You can’t see me” move by waving her hand across her face while staring at Iowa’s Caitlin Clark during the championship game.
The move was nothing new to Clark — she had made the same gesture during the Elite Eight game against Louisville.
Reese followed Clark around the court Sunday near the end of the game doing the move and pointing to her finger, presumably referencing the championship rings teams get when they win a collegiate national championship.
Reese defended her actions following the game as people began to comment on them.
“All year I was critiqued about who I was. I don’t fit the narrative,” Reese told reporters Sunday. “I don’t fit in the box that y’all want me to be in. I’m too hood. I’m too ghetto. Y’all told me that all year. But when other people do it, y’all don’t say nothing. So this is for the girls that look like me, that want to speak up for what they believe in. It’s unapologetically you. And that’s what I did it for tonight. It was bigger than me tonight.”
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