Brittney
Yevette Griner was
born on October 18, 1990.
In 2006 Griner
enrolled into Nimitz High School located
in Houston, Texas as a six-foot tall
freshman without having played any
organized basketball.
Griner started out
on the jayvee squad, and then worked her
way up to the varsity where she led the
team with 13 points per game and earned
first-team all-district honors.
Griner
has grown an astonishing 8 inches and
wears a man's size 18 shoe which is why
her friends nicknamed her "Big
Foot."
As
a senior at Nimitz High, Griner was ranked
as the top female basketball player in the
nation, by all recruiting services, and
for good reason. The 6-foot-8 inch
center averaged 33 points, 15 rebounds,
and 11 blocks, per game. That season she
also dunked 52 times in 32 games,
including 7 dunks in a single game. With
stats like these, you bess believe college
recruiters were gonna come-a-callin, and that's
exactly what happened. The much ballyhooed
Griner, was courted by some of the most elite
colleges in the country. Texas,
Texas Tech, Kansas, LSU, Wake Forest,
Baylor, Tennessee just to name a few, all clamored
at the chance to recruit the basketball
phenom. On
November 12, 2008, Griner signed a
letter of intent to attend Baylor. In the
fall of 2009, she officially enrolled at
the University.
2009-2010
Freshman Year
As a freshman at Baylor, Griner
received numerous national and Big 12
awards including USBWA freshman of the
year, second team All-American, (Many
though she would have made First-Team all
American if not for her altercation with
Texas Tech's Jordan Barncastle.) Griner
averaged 18.4 points per game during the
2009-2010 season. She also blocked a record
setting 223 shots, including a record 40
blocks in a five game tournament,
and 14 blocks in a single game against
Georgetown. Griner with her dominate style
play helped propelled her team to the NCAA
March Madness tournament. On March 27,
2010 in a sweet 16 matchup, they meet heavily
favored, 3rd-ranked Tennessee coached by
the legendary Pat Summitt. In an upset,
Griner scored 27 point and 10 block shots
to defeat the Lady Vols, 77-62. The win
advanced the Lady bears to an elite eight
matchup with second-seeded Duke. One
again, the Griner led Lady Bears surprised
many by defeating the Lady Blue Devils,
51-48. In the final four match up against
top-ranked Connecticut, the young Lady
Bears comprised mostly of a team of freshman's
were soundly beat by the undefeated Lady Huskies,
70-50. And as expected UConn would go on
to win the NCAA championship for the
second consecutive year. However, even
with the lost Griner and the Lady Baylor
had made it known the women's basketball
that in the coming years, they would be a
team to be reckoned with. On November 24,
2009, Griner became the 7th woman in
college basketball history to officially
dunk in a game. She ended the season with
four.
2010-2011
Sophomore Year
Brittney
Griner led the Lady Bears to a 34-3
winning record while amassing numerous
awards, as well as, personal and team
records. She was voted first-team
All-American, National Defensive Player of
the Year, the teams MVP, Big 12 Conference
Player and Defensive Player of the Year
and so on. Griner blocked 170 shots during
her sophomore campaign amassing a career
total of 391, which is a Baylor record and
ranks 2nd in the Big 12. During the
season, she also recorded her forth triple-double,
and the fifth dunk of her college career
against Texas Tech. In the Big 12
tournament, Baylor won the title outright
in the finals by defeating Texas Tech,
61-58. They received the number-1 seed in
the Dallas region then defeated Prairie
View A&M, West Virginia and Green Bay
to advance to their second Sixth Sweet 16 appearance
during the Griner era. In what had to be
the disappointment of the year, the Lady
Bears suffered their most humiliating
defeat of the season, when they lost to
3rd-ranked Texas A&M 58-46, a team
they had previously beaten three times
during the course of the season. Baylor
had also defeated Notre Dame, the team
Texas Tech beat in the finals to win the
NCAA championship. Baylor finished the
season ranked number three in the nation.
Griner finished the season averaging 23
points, 7.8 rebounds and 4.7 block shots
per game. She was also the first woman to
appear on ESPN's Sport Science, a studio
which to evaluates physical
abilities.
Brittney
Griner
has the potential to become perhaps the
most dominate woman basketball player in
the history of the game.
