NCAA women's tournament: Stanford's Francesca Belibi turns block into fast-break dunk

Stanford’s Francesca Belibi made the best play of the women’s NCAA tournament Friday evening.

Belibi blocked a shot and immediately converted it into a fast-break dunk in the first half of the Cardinal’s game against Montana State. Just look at the athleticism on display.

Belibi is no stranger to dunking the basketball. A season ago she became the first NCAA women’s basketball player to dunk in a game since Brittney Griner and has continued to throw it down as she’s grown as a player. Belibi averages eight points a game for Stanford in what’s just her seventh year of competitive basketball.

The junior didn’t start playing basketball until she was a freshman in high school and made her first dunk a year later. The 6-foot-1 Centennial, Colorado, native blossomed into a five-star recruit during her high school career and signed with Stanford out of high school.

She’s become known for her one-handed dunks on fast-breaks in her college career and she’s just the eighth player to dunk in a top-level women’s college basketball game and the second-shortest player in that group.

Her dunk on Sunday was part of a 41-point barrage by the Cardinal in the first half as it opened up a big lead on the overmatched Bobcats. After Kansas won earlier in the day against Georgia Tech, Stanford is set to face the Jayhawks in the second round.