SACRAMENTO, Calif. ― There’s only one way Shaqir O’Neal, son of NBA legend and Basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal, could describe his senior season of college hoops at Sacramento State.
‘A movie,’ the 22-year-old starting forward told USA TODAY Sports.
O’Neal, who’s listed at 6-foot-8, 200-pounds, committed to Sacramento State last spring following his junior year at Florida A&M, a Historically Black College/University or HBCU.
The Sacramento State program sparked his interest after it was announced that former Sacramento Kings star Mike Bibby would take over as a first-year collegiate basketball head coach. He was Bibby’s first recruit.
A month after getting a commitment from O’Neal, high-profile guard Mikey Williams announced he’d transfer from UCF to join the Hornets. It got the ball rolling as they recruited players from all over the country, both high school and college, in a complete rehaul of the roster and coaching staff from the preceding year.
The spotlight on the university brought attention and several opinions. O’Neal and the Hornets hoops team have seen their share of wins and losses, particularly due to injuries, including two of their top scorers, Jeremiah Cherry and Williams, among others.
‘It’s been an unreal experience,’ O’Neal said. ‘Coach Bibby and his staff, they really care about the players, just on and off the court. They made sure they built that relationship with us early in the summer. It’s really been a movie with all the press and all this stuff. And haters and this and that. And the ups and downs. Us losing players to injuries, like it’s been real, it’s been crazy, but it’s been a great learning experience.’
The Hornets’ season hasn’t played out as they thought it would. Their injuries have led them to run with seven-or eight-man rotations. And despite a 10-4 record at home, Sacramento State hasn’t won a single game on the road at 0-16.
Overall, Sacramento State has a 10-20 overall record, including 6-12 in Big Sky Conference games.
‘It’s been unfortunate, but you know, that’s just the game,’ O’Neal said. ‘I’m blessed to be able to play and be out there. I can’t complain about anything, you know, I’m able to play this game, and that’s all I want to do.’
He added: ‘Not being able to have some of my teammates out there, you know, it’s been tough knowing how good we could have been with all of us together, and we’ve been really good with the guys we have. For us to be this good with only seven players is still very impressive.’
On his senior night, O’Neal was introduced with his parents, Shaunie Henderson and Shaq, who watched their son enjoy a blowout win against Idaho State, 83-65, in Sacramento State’s final home game of the season.
O’Neal dished a pair of assists and scored seven points. He cashed in a catch-and-shoot three, went airborne to guide an alley-oop pass from Romari Robinson in the basket after contact and hit a couple of free throws in 23 minutes.
March Madness continues as the Hornets take on the University of Idaho in the first round of the Big Sky Tournament in Boise, Idaho.
Still their hopes for a so-to-speak Cinderella season remain alive. Winner of the Big Sky tournament earns an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
O’Neal and his HBCU basketball experience
A trip to the NCAA Tournament wouldn’t be a first for O’Neal. He was part of the Texas Southern University team in 2023 that lost 84-61 to Fairleigh Dickinson, although he hardly logged a minute of playing time.
O’Neal spent the majority of his collegiate career at an HBCU, playing his freshman and sophomore years at TSU before transferring to Florida A&M for his junior season, both a part of the Southwestern Athletic Conference.
He said it played a role in his decision to transfer to Sacramento State, aside from the Bibby hiring.
‘My decision to leave FAMU for Sac State was just that I was in the SWAC for a long time, my whole career,’ O’Neal said. ‘I was at a low-major D-1, the plan is to move up. My only offer, my best offer was Sac State. And it just worked out perfectly. Like, Mike Bibby is a legend. Who wouldn’t want to be coached by him? I just wanted to move up in competition.’
O’Neal saw firsthand the difference between low-major and mid-major colleges in comparing the different universities he’s attended.
‘FAMU was a great school, like the teachers, you could tell teachers and advisors, they really cared, and it was like a whole community,’ O’Neal said. ‘They just didn’t have lots of resources. We’re in Tallahassee, Florida, and there’ll be hurricanes that shut down school campus. There’d be leaks and stuff. So I say just the resources are different.’
He also pointed out the different campus sizes but from a basketball standpoint, O’Neal said it was much of the same with glaring differences between the schools and respective resources, adding that there’s ‘levels’.
‘The basketball experience, totally different. It’s like you can really tell from the definition of low major, mid major and high major, it’s there you can see it,’ he said. ‘Everything’s different. … Going back to the resources, here we have a nice gym, practice gym, this and that. Sometimes other schools, we didn’t have that. […]So, yeah, it is a big difference.’
For example, O’Neal also mentioned the comparison in how much gear and equipment players are allotted stating it was one bag of items for the season at previous schools, whereas now he gets a lot more.
O’Neal wasn’t highly touted as a three-star recruit coming out of Union Grove High School in McDonough, Georgia. However, all roads led to Texas Southern, as he had family ties at the university in head coach Johnny Jones, who coached his dad, Shaq, as an assistant coach at LSU.
‘I wasn’t really highly offered. I had a couple interests, and it was around the COVID-19 time. So it was pretty tough,’ O’Neal said. ‘I didn’t really get good or make a little noise until my senior year. With my offers. That was just, you know, the one that made sense the most was the closest to home, and coach Johnny Jones.’
O’Neal appeared in 41 games and started two for the Fighting Tigers. He averaged 1.5 points, 1.3 rebounds, 0.5 assists, 0.2 blocks and steals in 8.5 minutes per game.
After a conversation with Jones about his place on the team, they agreed that O’Neal should find another school to play at.
‘I wasn’t comfortable with the role I was in with the time I was there,’ O’Neal said. ‘I had to get up out of there, it was a mutual decision. No bad blood at all, because coach Jones is family. We just talked about it.’
His underusage led him to transfer to FAMU. Not to mention, the university signed a sponsorship deal with NBA superstar LeBron James, which meant O’Neal could rock the star’s Nikes.
‘At TSU I was Under Armor for three years straight, so I couldn’t wear any Nike,’ O’Neal said. ‘So that was also a problem. So when I got to wear LeBron’s, it was big. … And when the new Bron’s came out, we got the FAMU edition. It was great.’
He averaged 6.7 points, 3.4 rebounds, 0.8 assists, 0.5 steals, 0.5 blocks and 18.1 minutes per game during his junior year at FAMU. His shooting splits were 50% from the field and 37.5% from three. He started 17 of 29 games played.
Playing his senior year at Sacramento State
Under Bibby, he’s started and played all 30 games. He’s seen a slight drop in averages, yet similar numbers. In his senior season at Sacramento State, O’Neal has averaged 5.4 points, 3.2 rebounds, 0.6 assists, 0.5 steals and blocks in 19.3 minutes. He shoots 42% on field goals, including 34% from three.
‘I think I progressed really well,’ O’Neal said of his collegiate career. ‘Just gotten bigger. I feel like I’ve adapted more to the game of college basketball and trying to find my role.’
O’Neal is probably hardest on himself. He knows his numbers aren’t flashy and there’s room for improvement.
‘I think I started off the season not too well, and kind of picked up a little bit,’ he said. ‘I know I could do better. I could be playing better. So I say I did, all right, I did solid. … I’ve seen greatness, been around really good players, so I know what it takes, and I know what I’m capable of. I’ve shown, probably glimpses, but I know I could have played better than what is shown.’
That drive and determination from O’Neal is one of the things that Bibby admires about his first recruit.
‘I got a call from my buddies and asked if we’d take him? I said, ‘would he come here?’ He’s like, ‘yeah,” Bibby told USA TODAY Sports in a phone call. ‘I love former players’ kids. I mean, they got the pedigree in them, they got the blood in them. And a lot of these people don’t give those guys a chance, because they sometimes compare them to their fathers.’
Bibby and O’Neal’s dad, Shaq, used to have playoff battles against each other in the early 2000s between the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings.
Bibby said he never would have thought, all these years later, he’d not only be coaching Shaq’s son but also be friends with him and team up to work alongside the legendary big man himself, who joined as a volunteer general manager a month after his son signed.
Bibby highlighted his will to do whatever the team needs to be successful, whether it’s playing all five positions on the floor.
‘We’ve had a lot of injuries, he’s kind of been playing out of position,’ the Hornets’ first-year coach said. ‘We’ve had to play him at the four, and he’s not a four, and so it’s kind of disrespectful to him. It’s like he’s doing what it takes for us, what we need. He’s a great kid, and we love what he does. … We’re putting the positions where he’s had to play a role for us that he’s probably never had to play before.’
O’Neal won the team’s dunk contest at the beginning of the season, to the surprise of his coach. Bibby was impressed with O’Neal’s underrated athleticism, noting that he wants him to use it more on the defensive end.
‘He’s really athletic, you know. I mean, he doesn’t like to show it,’ Bibby said. ‘He won our dunk contest. And I was like, ‘I didn’t know you could jump like that,’ like you have to go out there and use that. He’s one of the most athletic kids, if not, the most athletic kid we have on the team.’
Despite his genetically-gifted athleticism, noted by his teammate Williams, Bibby shared intangibles that O’Neal possesses that can help him get to the next level.
‘Just hard work,’ Bibby said. ‘He hasn’t missed a practice for us. Just the hard work he puts in. … He’s on time. Great charisma, great character, all-around good kid. I think he puts his time in and really puts the work in, he’ll be fine.’
And the feeling is mutual with O’Neal.
‘It’s been great,’ O’Neal said of playing under Bibby. ‘I feel like a lot of NBA dudes are the same, and because he reminds me of my dad a little bit. Just the way they roll and he’s just real. I’ve been a lot of I grew up around a couple older guys, so I just feel like, I get what he’s saying sometimes. He’s just a real guy. He’s just a real coach. What he says is real, realistic. And he’s just hard nose, hard working. He’s a dog.’
NBA dreams from a hoops home
O’Neal has hoop dreams. His earliest basketball memory is playing at a local YMCA in Orlando, Florida, when he was six.
He remembers watching his dad play, too. One of his favorite players is Kobe Bryant, particularly when he rocked the afro. It’s one of the reasons he’s worn the No. 8 throughout his college career.
In his next chapter, O’Neal wants to do other things outside of basketball, but absolutely wants to play in the NBA.
‘Just being in the NBA is a dream job. Just to play the game you love, on the biggest stage, at the highest level,’ O’Neal said. ‘Now, you’re getting crazy amounts of money for it.’
O’Neal knows what it takes, he wants to focus on ‘defense for sure’ he said.
‘Defense wins games, and it’s something that not everybody does,’ he said. ‘A lot of players, the best players undefined, but you got to do the little things stand out from the norm.’
O’Neal would be eligible for the 2026 NBA Draft, according to Real GM Basketball. However, O’Neal is not currently listed on any of the major publications’ draft boards or expected to be drafted in the first round.
O’Neal had a front row seat at all that goes into being a professional basketball player, let alone playing in the NBA. And he’s learned from the best.
His dad is a four-time NBA champion, three-time Finals MVP, league MVP, a 15-time All-Star and considered one of the greatest centers ever. That can be an insurmountable amount of pressure for anyone to overcome, but he was never pushed towards basketball, neither were his siblings.
‘My parents don’t put any pressure on me at all. My dad, he never has put any pressure on me to go to the league,’ O’Neal said. ‘When we told them we wanted to play, they were like, ‘alright, well, if you want to play, then be the best and work hard and you got to play hard.”
He added: ‘My dad is super cool, like, he’s had his career. He doesn’t care about basketball too much. He just tells me to play hard, play as hard as I can. And, you know, just be the best man I can. They’re not too worried about sports. They’re really more worried about how we are as people. … He’s pressured me and my siblings to be more of like, lawyers and some stuff like that, growing up.’
His siblings, as competitive as a bunch could be, also hoop.
His older brother, Shareef, played at UCLA, LSU and had a short G-League stint, although health setbacks ultimately stunted his career.
He said his other older brother, Myles, stopped playing at high school and is now a model and DJ, but was most competitive of all his siblings growing up, whether sports or even card games like UNO.
Then, there are his sisters, who also play ball, with the exception of older sister, Taahirah.
Older sister, Amirah, played at LSU and TSU while Shaqir played there. He said his younger sister, Me’arah, was also ultra-competitive growing up. Now, she is a sophomore at Florida, averaging 13.6 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.1 assists on 52.9% shooting.
‘She’s really good. She’s going to the league,’ O’Neal said of Me’arah. ‘She’s really competitive, because me and my brother ‘Reef, we used to play with her and we’d beat her. And then my older sister Mimi, she was bigger when we were younger, so she’d like beat me up. So she was getting buckets too. So they are both really competitive.’
He added: ‘We made her a dawg, me and ‘Reef, I feel like, because we used to go at it.’
That ‘dawg’ is simply part of the O’Neal bloodline. It’s that same fire and competitiveness that tells Shaqir to keep going.