Adams: Can't pull punches to hold off Griner

MEMPHIS - Baylor's Brittney Griner has blocked 199 shots and thrown one punch this season. She has broken several records and one nose.

Her well chronicled freshman season will be relevant this afternoon against Tennessee in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA women's basketball tournament. And it will be as much about psychology, as physicality.

Griner's one YouTube-worthy punch has had far more staying power than all those blocks or her four dunks, any one of which is headline material in women's basketball. Aside from the Texas Tech player whose nose wound up on the end of the 6-foot-8 center's right hand, the punch seemingly has hurt the puncher more than anyone else.

"She has been a little timid, and I think she has been a little softer than she was before the incident," Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said Friday. "That was to be expected.

"She has a conscience. She knows she did wrong, and it's going to take her a little while to get over it."

More than three weeks have passed since the dunker decked Texas Tech's Jordan Barncastle, whose last physical act with a properly aligned nose was a sharply thrown elbow, which drew both a foul and Griner's wrath. She was suspended for two games and figuratively counter-punched by some media-types, the majority of whom might not have raised so much as a typing finger if the incident had occurred in a men's game.

The punch was more stunning because of the personality behind it. There's no Ron Artest history with Griner. Mulkey refers to her as a "gentle giant," and her teammates portray her as someone more likely to negotiate a truce than start a fight.

Maybe that's why Griner hasn't bounced back as quickly from a knockdown punch that knocked down somebody else.

In her first NCAA tournament game, she was admittedly self-conscious.

"I was thinking more about the refs than I was my game," she said.

She scored 18 points but blocked only two shots in a 69-55 first-round victory over Fresno State. In Baylor's second-round victory, she had an NCAA tournament-record 14 blocks against an offensively challenged Georgetown team but made just two of seven shots and scored seven points.

UT assistant coach Dean Lockwood, who works closely with post players, has detected a slight difference in the post-punch Griner, but it's not like she plummeted from "a nine to a two or three" on a 10-point aggression meter.

In Baylor's best-case scenario, Griner will be suitably rehabbed by this afternoon. A shrinking violet, even one that tall, could get trampled by the Lady Vols, who might not be able to look Griner in the eyes but can surround her with more 6-foot-plus antagonists than any other two teams on Baylor's schedule.

Glory Johnson, a 6-3 forward who isn't especially discreet with her elbows, recalled from UT's opening-season victory over Baylor that Griner wasn't enamored with physical play.

"We will be physical with her," she said with a smile.

Alicia Manning echoed that mindset from a different perspective. She has broadened UT's offense with timely drives to the basket and has no intention of taking a different course against the NCAA's single-season record setter in blocked shots.

"I'm going to stay in an attack mode," she said. "You can't go in there being afraid."

She sounded no more intimidated by the infamous punch than all of the blocks.

"It only proves that you can get in her head," Manning said.

But Griner won't win this head game with restraint alone. Against a front line as big and aggressive as UT's, you can't afford to pull your punches.

John Adams may be reached at 865-342-6284 or adamsj@knoxnews.com.