{"id":248949,"date":"2026-04-28T00:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T00:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/248949\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T00:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T00:25:08","slug":"mearah-oneal-shaqs-daughter-leaving-florida-for-kentucky-field-level-media-professional-sports-content-solutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/248949\/","title":{"rendered":"Me&#8217;Arah O&#8217;Neal, Shaq&#8217;s daughter, leaving Florida for Kentucky &#8211; Field Level Media &#8211; Professional sports content solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Praised as the \u201cbest athlete in the family\u201d by her father, Shaquille O\u2019Neal, Me\u2019Arah O\u2019Neal announced on social media on Monday that she is transferring from one SEC school to another, leaving Florida for Kentucky.<\/p>\n<p>Following a strong sophomore season with the Gators (13.6 points, 6.4 rebounds, 1.4 steals, 1.4 blocks per game), O\u2019Neal announced her intention to play elsewhere after coach Kelly Rae Finley\u2019s firing. Florida went 5-11 in the SEC and finished in a tie for 12th place in 2025-26.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter a lot of thought and intentionality with my next steps, I\u2019ve made the tough decision to enter the transfer portal,\u201d she wrote on Instagram. \u201cWith faith and high expectations, I\u2019m ready to power forward and embrace wherever God takes me next.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Neal\u2019s siblings have also played college basketball, including older brother Shareef (UCLA, LSU), sister Amirah (LSU, Texas Southern) and brother Shaqir (Sacramento State).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy baby is the best athlete in the family because she can do it all,\u201d Shaquille O\u2019Neal said about Me\u2019Arah recently on his podcast. \u201cShe\u2019s not an old-school player. She\u2019s the new pick-your-type player, so I\u2019m going to give her the title. She can shoot, she can dribble. She can\u2019t be fazed when it comes to certain things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Neal will now play for coach Kenny Brooks at Kentucky, which made a run to the Sweet 16 in March.<\/p>\n<p>The Wildcats return leading scorer and all-SEC first-team selection Clara Strack along with Asia Boone, who averaged 10.1 points and shot 36.5% from 3-point range. A trio of McDonald\u2019s All-Americans \u2014 Maddyn Greenway, Savvy Swords and Emily McDonald \u2014 highlight a talented recruiting class. Kentucky will also have UConn transfer Ayanna Patterson on its roster this fall.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013Field Level Media<\/p>\n<p>                                            <img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777335908_765_be4452b65ace878d206f2029709048c825036e3517e6a89f4eedc3d4c530e2ba.jpeg\"  class=\"avatar avatar-96 photo\" height=\"96\" width=\"96\" decoding=\"async\"\/>                                            <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Praised as the \u201cbest athlete in the family\u201d by her father, Shaquille O\u2019Neal, Me\u2019Arah O\u2019Neal announced on social&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-248949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}