Brittney Griner took a pass from a teammate under the basket, took a step to the basket and jammed the ball through the rim— becoming only the second woman in history to dunk in an NCAA tournament game Tuesday night.
The 6-foor-8 junior phenom's rare feat highlighted top-seeded Baylor's 76-57 win against ninth-seeded Florida in the second round game.
Tennessee's Candace Parker— who holds the career record with seven dunks— had dunked twice in an NCAA tournament game against Army in 2006.
The second half jam was Griner's first dunk of the season and helped erase the memory of going scoreless for nearly 12 minutes in the first half of the second round game.
Griner took the reaction of the fans and teammates in stride— and without showboating.
"I think my team got fired up a little bit more than me," she modestly said. "I got a little more fired up, I think, on the blocks I had. But it definitely felt good throwing it down."
The Bearcats head coach Kim Mulkey was a little more enthused.
"That wasn't just a barely-over-the-rim type of dunk. That was a monster dunk," she said. I think Brittney is so conscious about people writing good or bad about the dunk, that she's scared to get excited sometimes and celebrate a dunk, because she's been written about in a negative way. I said, 'Honey, if could dunk it, I'd do backflips down the floor."
Griner wowed the crowd before the game by tossing down dunks and hanging on the rim in warmups. She finished the game by going 8 of 14 from the field with 9 rebounds and six blocks.
Baylor (36-0) moves on to the Sweet 16 to face fourth-seeded Georgia Tech.
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