When Baylor star Brittney Griner lines up for the jump ball in Sunday's Final Four game with Stanford, she'll be facing a familiar rival.
The Cardinal are led by the 6'4 Nneka Ogwumike, who, like Griner, is a Houston native. The likely No. 1 pick in the 2012 WNBA Draft, Ogwumike was a year ahead of Griner in high school.
The only two unanimous selections to the AP All-American team, they faced off once before in AAU ball:
"But at the time, Brittney wasn't really Brittney yet," said the Ogwumikes' AAU coach, Rob Amboree, now an assistant at Prairie View A&M. "(Griner) was maybe 6-4 or so and still coming into her own. Nneka is a lot better now, too, so this game Sunday should be incredible."
"This is a game that people in Houston wanted to see a long time ago, when these girls were the top players in town in high school," said Cy-Fair girls basketball coach Ann Roubique, who coached the Ogwumike sisters. "And now to see it happen at the Final Four. It doesn't get much better."
But while Griner has a four-inch advantage in height, Ogwumike has her "little" sister Chiney, the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year, by her side in a game that many analysts think will decide the NCAA championship.
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