Undefeated Baylor swamped Notre Dame, 80-61, on Tuesday, becoming the first N.C.A.A. basketball team to win 40 games in a season. Victory brought a shower of confetti on the court and a cascading validation for the 6-foot-8 Griner, who has developed into perhaps the greatest player of this or any other season of women's college basketball.
"Brittney Griner may go down in history as the most dominant post player, especially on the defensive end," said Baylor Coach Kim Mulkey, who won her second N.C.A.A. title since 2005.
On Tuesday, Griner delivered 26 points, 13 rebounds and 5 blocked shots, hitting 8 of her 9 shots in the decisive second half. With a title came a Rushmorean legitimacy, confirmation that Griner in her junior season had joined Nancy Lieberman, Cheryl Miller, Chamique Holdsclaw, Diana Taurasi and Candace Parker as the college game's greats.
Certainly, Griner is the most disruptive player ever at the defensive end, with a wingspan that stretches to 7-4. On Tuesday, she bothered many more shots than she blocked. Notre Dame (35-4) missed 40 of its 62 field-goal attempts and settled for being the national runner-up a second consecutive season.
"The national championship, I wanted it because this is what our team wanted, and what we promised Coach when we got here," Griner said. "It had nothing to do with validating what type of player I am. That was the last thing in the back of my mind."
She summoned all of her splendid mobility and resourceful shooting in the second half against Notre Dame. She leaned inside for a basket, drove for another, spun around two defenders on the baseline, feathered a jump hook, and caught an inbounds pass and vaulted over three opponents.
It has been said repeatedly that Griner has changed women's college basketball. That is true, to a point. The game will be altered as long as she remains at Baylor. But this is sport, not the auto industry. There no other 6-8 models with Griner's skills on the assembly line.
With a businesslike dunk early in the tournament against Florida, and a breakaway, two-handed rim-hanger against Georgia Tech, Griner emphatically rebutted the contention by those who would dismiss women's basketball that it is unworthy because it is played below the rim.
"I think that the dunk in some ways has been used against women, that the women's game is somehow inferior because women don't dunk on a regular basis," Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer said. "But she gets right out there and dunks off an inbounds pass or dunks in transition."
Notre Dame tried to surround Griner in a zone defense, but it worked only briefly. Devereaux Peters, the Irish forward assigned to Griner, drew three fouls before halftime.
After trailing by 9-8, Baylor moved ahead to stay with a 12-1 run. Griner blocked a reckless drive by Notre Dame guard Kayla McBride, dropped in a layup, grabbed an offensive rebound and hit a follow shot as the Bears went up by 20-10.
"I think she's one of a kind," Notre Dame Coach Muffet McGraw said of Griner's moves in the post. "She's like a guy playing with women."
After the propriety of McGraw's remark was questioned on social media, the Notre Dame coach issued a statement saying she was referring to Griner's style of play and dominance.
"Any attempt by others to read anything more into that comment is wrong, malicious and incredibly insulting to Brittney, Kim (Mulkey) and the Baylor women's basketball program, and it's a poor attempt by some to try and take away from what was a well-played national championship game," McGraw said. "I have held, and continue to hold Brittney and the Baylor women's basketball in the highest regard and I congratulate them on winning the title this evening."
Griner said she took McGraw's remark as a compliment. Her own basketball career was as unplanned as it is perhaps unmatched. As a seventh grader in Houston, Griner was a soccer goalkeeper, not yet 6 feet tall. Her knees ached, and when she bumped into a desk, the pain could be excruciating.
By ninth grade, Griner had reached 6 feet or 6-1, and joined the volleyball team at Nimitz High School. On a dare, she dunked a volleyball. Inevitably, the basketball coach invited her for a tryout. By her senior year, she had spurted to 6-7. Sometimes, she sprouted so rapidly that she came downstairs in the morning and told her parents, "Dang, I think I grew last night."
At Baylor, Griner has changed perceptions about women's basketball and also about herself. As a freshman, she became frustrated by the jostling play and punched a player from Texas Tech, breaking the opponent's nose. Now Griner has become stronger and more patient, less rattled by muscling defenses, more comfortable expressing herself with the news media, always seeming at ease with her size.
"I like being different," she said. "I like being tall." The only drawback, she said, was that she "can't get that little sports car."
Instead, Griner prefers trucks, mountain bikes and kayaks. She glides across campus on a skateboard and calls herself a "humongous kid," one who has done cartwheels at Baylor football games.
There is an air of authenticity about her. She can be funny, charming and self-deprecating. And she seems, at least publicly, inured to the nasty comments and signs and Internet postings that remark on her unconventional height and appearance.
"My dad always told me, it doesn't matter what you look like," Griner said. "As long as you're fine with it, who cares what other people think."
The motivation for this season of unfinished business was kindled last March, when Baylor was upset by Texas A&M, the eventual 2011 national champion, in a regional final in Dallas. On the bus ride back to Waco, Tex., Griner removed the battery from her cellphone, wanting to talk to no one. The next day, she called Baylor's strength coach and wanted to schedule a workout.
Take a day off, he told her.
"I was itching to get back on the court," Griner said.
On Tuesday night, she completed a perfect championship season. There was no more unfinished business. Unfortunately for everyone else, Baylor returns all five starters next season.
"We shouldn't skip a beat," Griner said.
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