Change doesn't always come quickly.For example, when everyone says that Baylor freshman Brittney Griner will change women's basketball. Well, sure, she will.
But did we all expect it to happen in the first couple of weeks?
In the first three games of her college career, she has tried to dunk twice and missed both. Sunday at No. 17 Cal in Berkeley, Calif., Griner had an opportunity in the closing moments of a 69-49 victory. Baylor had the ball in transition and guard Melissa Jones passed the ball to Griner behind her back at the baseline. Griner went up with her right hand to dunk and the ball bounced off the rim. She pulled down the rebound and was fouled.
The Sunday afternoon crowd at Haas Pavilion buzzed, even with the miss.
"I should have went up with two hands and I only went up with one," Griner said. "I was hoping to go up for a second try, but I got a little tied up."
Griner finished the game with 15 points, seven rebounds, five blocks and five turnovers.
She was tentative in the first half in response to Cal's triple-teams, zone and trapping pressure and the efforts to push her out of the paint. It's not like she didn't know it was coming.
"I think it was butterflies," said Griner, who missed her first four shots before scoring with 6:08 to go in the first half. "It took a little time, but once things started going, the flow of the game started in the second half and things opened up."
Being 6-foot-8 and immensely talented doesn't protect you from nerves. Only experience can do that and Griner doesn't have it yet.The dunk, the thing that defines her game, is far down on the list of things that she needs to do to move her game to the college level.
She needs to learn how to pass more efficiently out of those triple-teams, to find open teammates, ala Stanford's Jayne Appel, who has made it an art form.
She needs to learn how to establish her position under the basket more assertively, without looking like she's afraid to foul.
She needs to use the face-up game that showed up in the second half.
But changing the game and altering a game are not the same thing. The influence she exerts over 40 minutes on the floor is undeniable.
She is the center of the defensive gameplan. She changes the opponents' offensive choices. And she is giving her teammates opportunities. Guards Shanay Robinson and Melissa Jones scored 18 and 15 points respectively.
"Brittney has such a big presence on the floor," Jones said. "It allows openings on the outside on the perimeter and in the post. It opens things up all over."
Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said there is no statistical category for Griner's pervasive influence on the floor.
"We don't have a stat for altered shots, we don't have a stat for the mindset of a player who says, 'I'm not turning that corner on that on-ball screen with her standing there.' It's very obvious if you watch the game, the presence of Brittney Griner in the paint. She just has been blessed with height and athleticism and I'm just glad she's on my team."
Griner would probably like to get her first official dunk out of the way -- her dunk in Baylor's exhibition win over Incarnate Word doesn't count. She knows everyone is waiting for it. They are certainly asking about it.
"I would love to do it some more, but they will come," Griner said.
Added Mulkey, "Look, we've played three games and I don't think I've coached a kid that's had as much attention thrown at her defensively as Brittney. You work your way through it and she does."
Griner is finding herself, and so is Baylor. The Bears have already played on the road at Tennessee and at Cal, splitting those two games, but showing promise.
"You have to remember that we are so young, so it's hard for me to gauge if we really did well," Mulkey said. "The good part is we won. Taking this team on the road to Knoxville and here is really throwing a lot at them. I saw a lot of improvement. But I don't know yet. We are still working hard."
