Denver --
Walking down a hall in the Pepsi Center on Saturday, Brittney Griner was asked how much longboarding has helped her balance and agility on the basketball court.
"A lot," she said. "I love it. I've been doing it a while. I started looking for empty swimming pools, like in that movie 'Lords of Dogtown.' It's my favorite movie."
Griner may be the scourge of women's college basketball - the 6-foot-8 Baylor junior is being called the greatest player of all time, and Saturday won the Associated Press Player of the Year - but she often acts like a wide-eyed girl who happens to have the body of an NBA player.
"She is such a kid; she reminds me of a 12-year-old," Baylor forward Destiny Williams said. "She is fun to hang around. She can make you laugh. But she'll get on you when she needs to. She plays video games. I beat her, so she's not that good."
In basketball, suffice it to say, there's no one else like her. She'll lead the No. 1 Lady Bears (38-0) against No. 2 Stanford (35-1) at 6 p.m. Sunday in the NCAA national semifinals. The other semifinal matches Connecticut (33-4) and Notre Dame (34-3) at 3:30. The winners play for the championship at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Thanks to Griner, the Bears are shooting for the first ever 40-0 season. But they'll have to get past the Ogwumike sisters, Nneka and Chiney, in what should be the most appealing matchup in the women's game in many years.
"I'm looking forward to it a lot," said Griner, who like the sisters comes from Houston. "I haven't seen Nneka or Chiney since high school, since summer ball. They play remarkable together - that sister instinct for each other on the floor at high-low."
In the past couple of years, Griner has built a game that's far more than just the shot-blocking skills of somebody with a 7-foot, 4-inch wingspan, longer than LeBron James', who's 6-8. Heck, it's even longer than Andrew Bynum's, and he's a 7-footer.
Having sharpened her offensive moves, she averages 23.4 points, to go with her 9.4 rebounds a game and 199 blocks. She has more assists (64) than turnovers (62), impressive for a post player. She has improved her free-throw shooting from 68.4 percent as a freshman to 80.4 this year.
Oh, yes, and she also has seven dunks in her career, two in this NCAA Tournament, tying Tennessee's Candace Parker, who did it twice in the 2006 Big Dance.
Baylor's other superstar, Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III, has challenged her to a dunking contest, although coach Kim Mulkey has ruled it out until her eligibility is done. "I told him I'm gonna dunk on him," Griner said. "No problem."
Some have wondered if she would leave school before her eligibility is up. She turns 22 in October, so she could enter the WNBA this year. But she emphasized Saturday, "I'm staying."
"Could you say that a little louder?" said Mulkey, who won AP Coach of the Year honors Saturday.
"I'm not going anywhere."
She'll be going to the Olympics with the U.S. team, of course. Earlier this year, Tennessee coach Pat Summitt said the only player she had encountered who was similar to Griner was Uljana Semjonova, a 7-foot Russian who dominated the international game in the 1970s and '80s. "She didn't have the speed Griner has," Summitt said.
Griner has a hidden skill: She knows her way around car engines. "My dad was always under a car, and I was right there with him," she said. "I can do a tune-up, change the oil, change the brakes, take the rotors off."
She has put a turbocharge into women's basketball. Now she'd like to turn its biggest stage into her own garage.
Briefly: Nneka and Chiney Ogwumike were named to the Women's Basketball Coaches Association's All-America team, joining Griner and Baylor guard Odyssey Sims.
Final Four capsules
Here are the other teams in the Final Four with Stanford:
Notre Dame (34-3): Counting a win in last year's national semifinals, the Irish beat UConn three straight times before losing to the Huskies in this year's Big East tournament finals. Skylar Diggins, who averages 16.7 points and 5.8 assists, leads four returning starters from the team that lost to Texas A&M in last year's national final. The other main player to watch is guard Natalie Novosel (15.3).
Connecticut (33-4): Like Stanford, the Huskies are in their fifth straight Final Four. The difference is that they won titles in two of them (2009, '10). They start four guards, just as the Irish do, but lack the superstar they had previously in Maya Moore. Led by Big East Player of the Year Bria Hartley (13.9 points per game), Tiffany Hayes and freshman reserve Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, they have bounced back from February losses to St. John's and Notre Dame.
Baylor (38-0): In the past two seasons, Brittney Griner has led the Lady Bears to a 72-3 record with her towering, shot-blocking presence. But this is not a one-woman show. All-America point guard Odyssey Sims is a terrific defensive player besides scoring 14.8 points per game. Destiny Williams, a 6-foot-1 post player, grabs 9.2 rebounds a game, just a tick behind Griner's 9.4. Baylor shoots more accurately than Stanford (49.0 percent to 46.0) and connects more often on threes (33.7 percent to 31.6).
- Tom FitzGerald
Tom FitzGerald is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Tfitzgerald@sfchronicle.com
This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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