Angel Reese has hit out at First Lady Jill Biden again over the controversial decision to invite both teams from Sunday's NCAA Championship game to the White House, and has revealed she and her team-mates said no to a private locker room visit from the First Lady prior to the game.
Reese was the star of the show as LSU defeated Iowa to win the National Championship, with her 15 points and 10 rebounds leading the way for the Tigers. Despite her heroics and LSU's dominant 105-88 victory, many were surprised to hear the First Lady invite both teams to the White House.
Speaking afterwards, she said: "So I know we’ll have the champions come to the White House, we always do. So, we hope LSU will come but, you know, I’m going to tell Joe [Biden] I think Iowa should come, too, because they played such a good game.”
That invitation was heavily criticised, with many feeling that inviting the losing team waters down the achievements of the winners. Reese was among them, and branded the invite a "joke" on social media.
She went further when speaking to the I Am Athlete podcast, hinting she would snub the invitation and instead look to go and visit Barack and Michelle Obama. Reese garnered criticism for her celebrations during the Championship game, and theorised that Biden's invitation to Iowa could have been a result of that criticism.
Reese explained: "If we were to lose, we would not be getting invited to the White House, no. I remember she made a comment about how both teams should be invited because of sportsmanship... are you saying that because of [the celebration] I did? It bothers me, because you're a woman at the end of the day, you're supposed to be standing behind us before anything, it's hard to see things like that and not comment on it.
"I'm not gonna lie to you, I don't accept the apology. You saw what she said. I said what I said, you can't go back on certain things. You felt like they should have come because of sportsmanship, right? They can have that spotlight. We'll go to the Obamas, we'll see Michelle, we'll see Barack."
Reese also revealed that the First Lady was due to visit both teams in their respective locker rooms before the game started, but that LSU decided as a team that they didn't want her to come, so declined the visit.
"Apparently she was supposed to come to the locker room before the game, but we said no... we said no," she continued. "She was supposed to come to our locker room and Iowa's locker room. I dunno if she went to their locker room but we said we didn't want her to come to ours. I think Joe Biden had put someone else to win the National Championship, he ain't even put us on his bracket, so I was like 'bet'.
