“Green and Yellow” not just for Packers

Baylor loves Lil’ Wayne’s tune ”Green and Yellow,” a remix he

made for the Green Bay Packers during their run to the Super

Bowl.

But they have a request.

They want the rap star to pen a version for them as they try to

make their second straight Final Four.

”Come on Lil’ Wayne, you need to go ahead and put a little

Baylor in there for us,” said star Brittney Griner, who has the

tune on her playlist.

Although Baylor’s colors are actually green and gold, Griner and

the team are fans of the song because its title so closely matches

their hues. ”Green and Yellow” is a remix Lil’ Wayne made of Wiz

Khalifa’s hit ”Black and Yellow.”

”When I first heard that song: ‘I was like, oh that’s Baylor

right there,” Griner said excitedly when asked what she thought

about the song.

Baylor’s Brooklyn Pope is an aspiring rapper and was playing

another Lil’ Wayne song on her iPod Monday morning. She too wishes

the New Orleans rapper would give the Bears a shoutout with a remix

of ”Green and Yellow” geared toward them.

After all, they are the only team in women’s basketball with a

player who has dunked this season.

”He wasn’t speaking to us, but he should,” Pope said. ”Lil’

Wayne should make a Baylor song. We have Brittney Griner on our

team, that’s pretty entertaining in itself.”

If Lil’ Wayne were to remix the song for the Lady Bears, there’s

a good chance coach Kim Mulkey would not be a fan of it. Both

players groaned about Mulkey’s musical offerings, which include

playing Rascal Flatts songs during every practice.

Griner said the country tunes don’t really get them amped up for

games.

”Definitely we would like to listen to more rap,” she

said.

—

ANYTHING YOU CAN DO: Top teams rule the regional in the women’s

tournament.

Seven of the eight teams playing Monday and Tuesday in the

regional finals are top seeds. Compare that to the men’s field,

where upsets ruled and not a single No. 1 or No. 2 seed advanced to

the Final Four.

Duke coach Joanne P. McCallie is tired of a tournament dominated

by heavyweights like Connecticut and Tennessee. She’d enjoy new

blood in an anything-can-happen mix like the men’s tournament has

established. She sees no reason why the women can’t grow the

tournament to the point where the mid-majors can win as easily as

the perennial powers.

And McCallie said the women might reach that parity in a

tournament that’s only 30 years old faster than the men did in one

that started in 1939.

”The women are better than the men, that’s the difference,”

she said, with a dose of sarcasm. ”Women are superior, and that’s

exactly what I’m talking about. This is where our multitasking and

intuitive smarts come in as women. We can grow this game and we can

know that we need to do certain things to do it.

”I have great respect for what the men do. I compare to be

better. Not compare to follow, but compare to be better.”

—

RATINGS BOON: Connecticut’s hard-fought 68-63 win over

Georgetown in the regional semifinals was the most viewed women’s

NCAA tournament game ever for the first three rounds. The contest

earned a 1.2 overnight rating, topping the previous high of 1.1 set

by the Huskies against Boston College in 2003. That numbers was

matched the next season in UConn’s contest against UC

Santa-Barbara. Texas Tech against Tennessee also matched that

number in 2005.

—

GRINER FREEBIES: For all the hacking that Brittney Griner has to

endure, the 6-foot-8 Baylor sophomore standout gets to the free

throw line a lot. And she’s gotten so much better there since a

miserable start this season.

When Griner scored a career-high 40 points in the NCAA round of

16 against Green Bay, her total included going 10 for 10 from the

free throw line. She is 29-of-35 during the NCAA tournament.

In the first week of the season, Griner was 5 of 13 from the

line in a one-point loss at Connecticut that still bothers her –

and was 19 of 32 (59 percent) the first four games. She has since

hit 81 percent of her free throws (208 of 256).

—

LONE STAR BASKETBALL: Texas A&M coach Gary Blair has a

message for all the people in the Lone Star State still focusing on

spring football.

There is some pretty good basketball still being played in

Texas.

”There’s basketball all across the country now. But isn’t it

surprising in the state of Texas, which is supposedly the `Woo!’

football state, we have the Mavericks, the Rockets and the Spurs,

and we get national champions in women’s basketball,” he said

Monday. ”And we’re still writing about spring football.”

Blair’s second-seeded Aggies play top-seeded Baylor in the

Dallas Regional final on Tuesday night, a matchup of the Big 12’s

top two teams for a berth in the NCAA Final Four.

”This is basketball time, and the last two teams that are

standing are women, whether we like it or not,” he said. ”Embrace

it.”

—

BRUISER’S BACK: Notre Dame senior forward Becca Bruszewski was

in the starting lineup for the regional final against Tennessee on

Monday night despite a sprained left knee. She had nine points and

two rebounds in the opening half, with the knee limiting her

ability to jump.

Bruszewski twisted the knee during a pileup under the basket in

the regional semifinal, a 78-53 win over Oklahoma. She left the

game, went to the locker room and got a brace, then returned and

played a little in the second half. Bruszewski had only four points

and two rebounds in 16 minutes.

The senior co-captain is nicknamed ”Bruiser” and leads the

Fighting Irish in their pregame warmups. She played in her

school-record 133rd game on Monday night.

—

GREEN FINGERS, HAPPY FEET: The Fighting Irish carried two

traditions into their regional final.

They wore green fingernail polish, an NCAA tournament tradition

that started in the second round of the 1997 tournament. The

Fighting Irish went onto the Final Four that year for the first

time in school history.

Before the player introductions, the Fighting Irish also formed

a circle by the free throw line, put their arms around each other

and danced a jig, another school tradition that originated during

the 2000 NCAA tournament. Notre Dame won the national title a year

later and has kept the jig for tournament games.

—

QUICK TO 1,000: Notre Dame sophomore point guard Skylar Diggins

got her 1,000th career point in the first half against Tennessee.

She came into the game only six shy of the mark and topped it with

a pull-up jumper with 4:52 left in the first half.

Diggins is only the second Notre Dame player to reach 1,000

points in her second season. Beth Morgan also did it.

—

AP Sports Writer Joe Kay in Dayton and AP Sports Writer Dan

Gelston and AP Basketball Writer Doug Feinberg in Philadelphia

contributed to this report.