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Brittney Griner Dunk

March 21, 2012 by · Comments Off on Brittney Griner Dunk 

Brittney Griner Dunk, At this point, Brittney Griner takes her dunks in stride – but her coach would like to see a few more of them. That was the message from Baylor’s Kim Mulkey after her star center’s right-handed slam highlighted another convincing win for the top-seeded Lady Bears.

“I think she’s gotten away from trying to be monstrous with her going to the rim,” Mulkey said. “I told her about two weeks ago – I said: ‘Even if you miss it, it sends a message.'”

Griner became the second woman to dunk in an NCAA tournament game Tuesday night, and Baylor beat ninth-seeded Florida 76-57. After a fairly quiet game-and-a-half to start the tournament, Griner took a pass from a teammate, stepped toward the hoop, stretched out her right arm and jammed the ball through.

It was the first dunk in over a year for the 6-foot-8 phenom.

“I think my team got fired up a little bit more than me. I got a little bit more fired up, I think, on one of the blocks I had,” Griner said. “But it definitely felt good throwing it down.”

Odyssey Sims added 14 points for Baylor (36-0). Azania Stewart led Florida (20-13) with 14.

Candace Parker of Tennessee dunked twice in an NCAA tournament game in 2006 against Army. Griner’s dunk was her first of the season and sixth of her career. Parker holds the career record with seven.

Griner played about half the game in Baylor’s rout of UC Santa Barbara in the first round, and she didn’t attempt a shot for almost 10 minutes against the Gators. But she began to assert herself late in the first half, in a sign of things to come.

She began the second half with a turnaround and a layup. Then Kimetria Hayden came up with an offensive rebound near the basket and passed to an open Griner, who dunked for the first time since Feb. 19, 2011, at Texas Tech.

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