LSU’s Angel Reese Pushes Back at Iowa’s White House Invitation

Defending the crown! Louisiana State College athlete Angel Reese pushed again after Dr. Jill Biden advised the NCAA basketball champions shouldn’t be the one group to obtain an invite to the White Home.

Reese, 20, and the LSU Tigers defeated the College of Iowa Hawkeyes 102-85 on Sunday, April 2, within the Division I match. Following the spectacular March Insanity match-up, the primary woman, 71, hinted that she wished to increase an invitation to the runners-up in addition to the winners.

“I do know we’ll have the champions come to the White Home; we all the time do. So, we hope LSU will come,” Biden mentioned at an occasion in Denver on Monday, April 3, per ESPN. “However, you already know, I’m going to inform [President] Joe [Biden] I feel Iowa ought to come too, as a result of they performed such a very good recreation.”

Reese was fast to chime in, sharing a hyperlink to the New Jersey native’s quote by way of Twitter. “🤣🤣🤣 A JOKE,” she wrote on Monday.

Sports activities analyst Stephen A. Smith confirmed his help for Reese and the Tigers. “Hey @Reese10Angel, I imply completely zero disrespect to the First Woman, however you’re 1000% appropriate,” he tweeted. “That could be a dangerous suggestion. Runner-ups don’t get invited to the White Home. Why are we making an attempt to alter it now? I fully agree with you, Angel.”

NCAA basketball champs have been visiting the White Home for many years, however the supply doesn’t sometimes embrace each groups who competed within the finals. Following the College of Connecticut males’s basketball victory towards San Diego State College on Monday — the fifth within the franchise’s historical past — the president, 80, expressed his pleasure for assembly with the school athletes.

“Congrats to @LSUwbkb who demonstrated excellence on and off the court docket. They confirmed us what it appears to be like wish to win with an unrelenting perception in themselves. They usually did it in one of many most-watched girls’s sports activities video games in US historical past,” he tweeted on Tuesday, April 4, with out mentioning the Iowa group. “We will all study loads from watching these champions compete — and I look ahead to welcoming them at every of their White Home visits.”

The primary woman’s press secretary, Vanessa Valdivia, clarified on Tuesday that Jill’s feedback “have been supposed to applaud the historic recreation and all girls athletes” as Reese and NCAA followers acquired riled up. “She appears to be like ahead to celebrating the LSU Tigers on their championship win on the White Home,” the staffer tweeted.

Reese beforehand sparked controversy for taunting Iowa athlete Caitlin Clark by pointing to her ring finger throughout Sunday’s recreation. She later poked enjoyable at Clark, 21, who had waved a hand in entrance of her personal face whereas matched up towards Louisville’s Hailey Van Lith within the Elite Eight week of March Insanity.

The Maryland native was slammed on-line, with a number of viewers calling her out for unsportsmanlike conduct. Clark, nevertheless, didn’t obtain the identical degree of criticism for making the identical gestures weeks prior, sparking a debate about racial inequality in sports activities.

“All 12 months I used to be critiqued about who I used to be. I don’t match the narrative. I don’t match within the field that you simply all need me to be in. I’m too hood, I’m too ghetto. You advised me that each one 12 months. However when different folks do it, y’all don’t say nothing,” Reese mentioned throughout a post-game press convention on Sunday amid the backlash. “So that is for the women that seem like me, that need to communicate up on what they imagine in. It’s unapologetically you. It was greater than me tonight. I’m completely satisfied. I felt I helped develop girls’s basketball.”