Add Shaq to the chorus critiquing First Lady Jill Biden’s ill-fated White House invitation for the Iowa Hawkeyes.

Biden suggested the Hawkeyes join the national champion LSU Tigers in a visit to Washington, DC, an idea that was almost universally dismissed by players and pundits alike before being walked back.

For Shaq, the NBA superstar-turned-TNT analyst, it wasn’t about sportsmanship or “participation trophies,” as suggested by “The Big Podcast” co-host Nischelle Turner — though he was hesitant to come out and say what he believed.

“No, but that’s not what it was about,” O’Neal said. “That’s not what it was about. I want people to use their imaginations. You know what it was about. I’m not going to mention it. You know what it was about, right?”

“We can say it,” Turner said. “It became a race issue. It became a team of all black girls beating a team of all white girls. That’s what it became.”

“I don’t like to throw that word around,” Shaq said.

Shaq made four trips to the White House as an NBA champ over his 19-season career.

“So, in the history of me going to the White House and all the champions going to the White House, we never even mentioned the second team, right?” Shaq, who helped campaign for Joe Biden in 2020, said. “But the fact that it was that versus that. And the other, that lost, that’s when they wanted to make it a participation. ‘Oh they lost but they were there and all that.’”

Biden’s unusual invite drew rebukes from across the sports world, including from Lady Tigers star Angel Reese, who herself was the subject of media coverage after she taunted Iowa star Caitlyn Clark toward the end of the championship game.

Despite the backlash, LSU confirmed that Reese and her teammates will indeed visit the White House to commemorate their championship — though according to Shaq, the Lady Tigers would not have received the same treatment if they had lost.

“If Iowa won she probably wouldn’t have had LSU come there,” co-host Spice Adams said.

“She wouldn’t even mention LSU,” Shaq said. “There ain’t no probably.”