Brittney Griner becomes second woman to dunk in NCAA tournament Game

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.

St. John's women win on coast-to-coast buzzer beater

St. John's fought off a second half charge by Creighton and beat the Bluejays on an amazing coast-to-coast basket by the Red Storm point guard Nadirah McKenith with only :01 left on the clock at the end of a nail biting NCAA Women's first-round matchup.

After Carli Tritz of Creighton tied the game at 67-67— by sinking two free throws with 5.4 seconds left—  McKenith took an in-bounds pass about 10-feet in, dribbled up the court zig-zagging through the Bluejays defense and tossing up a tear drop shot that went about six feet above the rim before swishing through the net.

McKenith tumbled to the floor as the St. John's bench erupted in cheers and Creighton players put their hands over their faces in disbelief.  A futile full court shot by Creighton (20-13) fell short as St. John's (23-9) almost became the first third-seeded team to fall to a 14th in the history of the women's tournament.

Red Storm head coach Kim Barnes-Arico must have had a lot of faith in her junior point guard.  She gave the green light for McKenith to single-handedly end the game on her own.  It's the kind of play that will be shown on highlight reels for a long time.

McKenith (an All-Big east second team point guard) finished the game with 21 points as a relieved St. John's moves on in the NCAA tournament.

One person who is probably really happy about the 69-67 St. John's win is President Obama.  He has the Red Storm in his Final Four bracket.